



























v'^ O o r ^ KL^ ^ 

^ ^0*’ o. % . ^ 0 ^ ^ 

^ ’-^C' ^ ‘ ° 

^ -7^ 


t/> ,c V 


il'P "" 

^ -V' “ ^' 


1 


..A' ' 


% 

<• 

<V 

ij* 



'/*. 

z 

o 

^ N 



ML ^ 




o 0^ 


^ ^ L. e 

f . c? 

>: ■"oo' .“'V. 

. ^ Ay 


C* ^ 


^ » I A * ^C>' <^. 


* 5 M 0 .V 

‘ ^ ^ * 0 , 


V> 


O. • 

O V. ' - c 

• .-, - ki 


L* ^ 


r. f 

^."i \0°x. ( 

-' b ’ O o^ 

^ ^ “ 0 / "> 

^ ^ t . ^ 


» C, 

d^ Hr ^ 

O ^ n . V ' s ^ 

.^A' . 0 “ 0 ,. '-rii ' * * ' a\ 

.-ft 


' « « '^ o 


V %■ .<’^'' * 


■<5i ^ # 


d. o\' 

o^- ^ a . V ,0^ < 

\ ^ " v^- >^ 

•A . VX V ^ ^^-■''vW -« V 'Pm. V^ ^ 

^ 1, |. "^0^ r ^ ^ ^ . 

^ ® Xu ^ ti 

V c j ^:^/f \\^ A X' -"1 

‘ /■ , . „ X.^. ‘ 

a:,,"'. " .A<^- s'lr«J^%, \> .•<•», 


'i-'^ 



V V 


' ^ A 




* C, 

* ...V’ 



" ✓ 

3 "-’, o-< 1 , *“ ■ ,'J.'' , 

cP • 'f:^ .'('*' ■>■ 

“' ■?51v„-ff^ , Kf, -V - 

V cP "" 

y> 




: 



^ v/ '^' ^ 

aV ✓ 




O" ^ O V ^ ^ 


zl 


V .V 


'\ '' 0 o V 

a\ , ^ ' 8 « '^O 

-I o 



yr ^ ^/0t 

^r?is^ A^ 

.qV ^ 0 N 0 ^ ^ ^ 



/ -v ■ » W 

■A'- •>>■. o ^ (. 


^> > \X- 



. . - . aP 

c ^ ^ „ <\V tp, 



, ,. 9 N 0 \X ^ 

^ tP K V 




'\. ^ .,}.v - . 

«... X' - :;/ . . - - V - - ,% 

' >* r ' '"° ^ ? '^‘- 

« Sffi «• . ^ -/s 



^ct'. 



-i'"' 'S> . ■> 





















/ 


PRICE, 50 Cl 

A Book 

of 

SFraost 

Sips 


BY 

eOULSO/N • KE-RMAHAM 

Author of “ A Dead Man’s Diary ” 


NEW YORK 

WARD, LOCK & BOWDEN, limited 

15 EAST 12th STREET 


S 



i ■ ' 


>\s' w • ■■ i • 

> 5 < 


iT.'^ ' 




















y * ^ ■■ *\^ ■■ ’ ‘ V- ^v>-r/*'-* ' **'v*''i - .y i 

' ^■- V '■* : , ;f-:'/- . ■ 


, ^ *1 ■ V 

. '^- • {>r ■ ■ ’ •■ • 

ff ^ .... 


m 


'• « 


' ‘ : . \ 

*■ . . • ', 


. •. » 


' ‘7 *1: V f V ; : ' - r >■ ■''" -dEiSBi 

•• r-v.,,, V, .. .':.r’9ja 

/> ✓< '> ’-.x , y,« '*• , t > ..':*■ .i 

^ • * . • • , . . , •*■- w - -v ;*• 

'*. ' ■ 




> 

r 


r 

» 

i(K 


,- ■ :;-#> Tv: V y. 

L i* j* Vw"" -^ ^ '* 

fT* I*. > -- ■'- 

t . '. ' • * jk * 

• ’ -* • • .,' t 


♦ k' • . . . % - . 

• V . - '. * • 


^ Vi , - 

. '•-■ /■ 

c '• . 


4 


V. v.« 


<■ s 


* .y*: 


t » ■»: » > 

' ^ jt * 



/ .\‘'.S 


- M 


i* • * « » 

♦ 




y* « I 


• /• 
* 


. ^ 


/;i : ,^ ■ ■ 




f 7- . - , -4'. -y::-\ • •• !■ ../ . ■• 

if - ■' ■*■' X ' '-•>.•-■ 'V. •■'. 'v ’. •; •■ ■. 

. ■ . . '• •• •>• -/i.- '.' - 


n . 4 ^ >- «n' ,>•;: 4 ; 

' /I 


>■ 


.tV-'. • 


* • •^ '■J A 




V.. 




? 

I » 





' ' . • * • ' t ■* . 

'T ' ■'■ y^- 

^ r wC'-' *!»’•*■ - . » • 

- % ■ . '^ , ■- » 

• » '. * 


J*. 


>- >-* 

> ■ ‘ K t ■ • 


I f 




k.. • 

. I'. 


•T*’ Y ^ , 


T’- - i* . -..-<1 

:•= ■ .' • .-''»-:;:i' ?..,-■ 

•^' . ' - , 1-**^ . V ‘v O' 

• . >" ’ »*r . ■ ' /• • j; 

-<■: .-.• • 


1*! 


\ 
✓ , 


-.' ■ '■'■■ ■- '■ ’'. ' '■ , . l wx's' '’ ^ -'“^y ' ' 

K'^ ■■ '' • •>7 ■" •■ 

.•■:/.'v - 'Xk '\ ^ ■■■'!- f.; X.--'.-, 

V H — ' ' 'v - , ' :>■ 7iiV ' ■•■7 X-/‘ ^ 


rT*'/ y - s ' 

bi5^ > 

y •- »» 




* 


r» .• 't 



V* . "t’ 

» 

1 


7.11 


• . 

y-v.-' 

•K 

V 

\ 

A ' . ■• 

( 

' 

• 

A ^ 

’ 

/4 

• A' 

*■ * 

« 

• •» 

1 

» 


V 

. 



1 

« '* 

• 


»> 



• 4 
\ 

i . 


■•■ % 


; -7'. >' 


/• 


t - 


7-,-^ 


rr' ^ 


iV?*^ 


iA' 





• - ' v^' .yiA -. •' -'.'%^..a••A■v^ ^ 


4 

A 


<_< V- ■ > • ■ • x 


Ti^7- ^ 

-y- --■ 


• . > 


A ^ "* r'. ' • ' -'k • T-. 

*.* V, 

i "v 


• . .^7- y.- ' •. -V;' 7 V- T/ ' 

“ t < I > . ./ .*•"<'* '4 * - f ‘ ** • • ^ 

•. V - .• __ ■•X 

"Vi^d •'*'> • ' 7 ' 1 


■, \ 

t" ** 

• * “ . y 


■* ^#r *: 

•» .- • ' V 




• ; • 


r 

*- • i: 


<t “• 


•%‘ 


r, 7- . 7f *; ■'•' ; 

■' •' ■''-'i'; •'.tJ--^-'r ■ ' ' ? 

^ .7 --v > 

• V ^ 3 iV •*' 

* J ; Vi ^CjfK w. 


• • 




: 




•r •* 


t 

• • , * ... 





.*r - 


IJ-- 


• If .-VI 

•5^14' 




"< 
r ir f 


* 

• . 1 


.<»t •. 


• .r rif ' 

. ‘ ■•“ . 

. . 4 - - * . 


Ik 


4 

\ . M ' 


-r ' a:' •. >:>' - 

#.-■ -•’ ' -..^/iT ^ y 

K - , - y 

'' — \ . 1 ^ 


* 


V I * 


V.' 


• • ^ *‘ ■ 1. i. 

^ — - •. ir ■ -' 


• ' • 


•*- T 


- .s 




. -. •<’.■' y: 

7 ; ^ 


■' ■•'• ' -7 ‘ • A/','vy - - /r- \ 

grff.. y c-y y..T • '•- ...v..-;:; . -y-' -y , ;. .■v.'3ra^ 

•? ♦ . L^‘ 4ii .' *• r • • ^ ^ ^ ' ' v"^ , ^ih. ’ ' ^ 

■ w ' . ■ ^ " V /* "V .*f / i -4ks''’ - A, 4 k '% • '• . • ilk* 

'■' :■' -:t ' ‘ , ;7 . y '-T' ’■'*'■ > J 'v; -v- ■ '' ' -7^'^ 

ft. * .• A »* • ’•f . r . ^ • • • ' \^T ' ■'^t^ f ** y ** 

^ 1.. - 7 ...i;”? v'-t: c- 1 •*■ ' :y>^ • lXm , ^ . ■ i ,T^S? 




»• • 


m 


; V.-- . ■: ,( y-ty-l X^' 'V ^ 




'-,•' T '•*>.>?» .-•'r- •■• ' J *?•••-*■' ' <. ■- ' f- 

. '»• * :'>» 1' ff.-: ‘ : . ' • ^ v ... 



.i-^:»r •■ • .“.T * ■ "a‘ > ■ ' ' > •* ’' kj ✓ 

.'■ ^ v5‘* “'* Vr - •'^•‘^v>'S''‘‘^» 

,./<:. X -i'- ' ' • -. . -• '\i 

C. -»..«. ^ K.— . i.«“- . '- ■ ■ ^ 5 . • ' . • • 

-'-;f-. ;.‘ >■ i-T- - ':' 




"SCr: 





V. * 


r,;' . y^'^ 

aSri’-'^S* .: ••' ■■ - 

^ • • • • ^ 


/ 

^ SJ 


K .' - 





> ■» 

• • \ «■ 




. ^ 


► '. 

• . ■ •» 

‘ . . < ' 


. '-J* V. . ’.H k 


V . 

' ^ f 

. > ./ • - 


w'* 


y ]'i' 

t 




/- : ■ i:. 

iv-^'v . i-, : • ■» •*• 


% 

y h. 


« ft 
1- 


* A •. 

. 

■ \- 




. ^s 


ys. . , 


• *. 


*'••» •xf’M * I fc.*' 1.* ’- - *'• 

^'1 ■ ^1 • ^ '* V •* 




k ’ ' ^ 


N. 


‘s, m' 

• •• • ' 


.> 


‘■N 


'■’r 




.'^5 * 





• 4 








4. 


-•'-^ .4V 


-Ts. 


» 


f- 


■< V 


•>*-. 

'•t 


- '• 
- «* 






•U: ' " -’ • .Cf *' L' ^ •, ^ “ * 

H „ii; ; z ;v ; .' ' z "• n-” / .. ■'•'^ 

’ '- -•^•^v^'vv'*^' V'' • - I'f.’ . ' . z * ■ •' j-4'”^' ’ ‘v • ‘‘ 

r.r--: • V V' • • \ ' . *... * ’ •- f 


v_ 

^ y 

• ' 


’^ r/v*i 


r. > 
( 

> • * 


•»*, ' 


V. 




'A ^ ’‘‘ Z'^ 

' »• r< . , -• . ' 

•‘- -c" ’ 


. . Ai 


->y 


r. 


i. V : 


.* ^ % 


. r Is • Jn * V "^_-. ttit 


V 

• • • 






, ..«^V ' ' /' V - ’ • 

‘?;i ' -^;r-- .4 . ;r-- " ■' 


*• » »«• •♦ •^'.‘ ' • J «' ’ ■> * " * 

. .*■ >' >■- '-■' ■ 

- V * 

■.^y, -■' :■ -J 

•^- •.- ■^' ■ . *• ' .' ' T 

,•> ^ «. • ‘^* . V. ■ '• • 

■ f 't ^ ‘ ^ ^ 

.• ♦ -- *"■ .. -*. . •' 




*jf> 








j; 


y: ■' ■■ 




4. • — •- 


; 








• s 


• "'J* '••%•■*: . ^ ^ -• 

''>? ■■■■ ■ ■'■ '' i ■ Z.I.' • 

z.: , - ‘-izsv:-: . 


..i 




r* » 


‘X ,- 


V y '- 




. '*> 
r 


•\ 




■' , '>'■ * • ’T, '■ . 

■ -W-'-'.vi* : * ■ z 


■i ♦. 


■^.'w '"^j***. , v 

. «»<’■.'"'*•*» ' • ■•• ' 

.,- Iv 

% 


- 


.\ 


♦ * 
* 


t 

.<•' 


. \ '* I 


• . . -4. •• • , % I 

C ” 1 ■ 

• - V *\ 

4 • '“ •.»' •”" 

V- . ' * . ' •- ■ V • 


S ft 




f^y ^ »-■■ >« , *VV 

. ‘I ■•■ • 4 ' • *4. ' . y-i ^ » i* • •• 

> . • v'-- ; - inV'-' -■.:* . *. ■ 

, / j'k' • - , >v ' ■ r 




^J ‘ 


% 


’• r- 




\ I 




\ 


• .■ « > j 


>4 

Nte 




'j- (. 




vC* » . V • > -» 


. ^ 


i“* '* 


vv- ••■ >■ ' ^ ■. - ^ 

^ "vA '• ■ '■'.-■•• ' ^ \ y ^ 

Z' ■«» *4 ■- ^'JC.m^ ^ ^ ^ 


r 


'■ 


•• '^^^ 

, f ' * •-■ z ■ 


-.* s 


A??. 


• ’ ■f'fj » <i> '■^' 

4 


’■^ ‘ W'- ■ ■• 


ri:j2.r;>' 


4 . 

I ' " > '■• 


In 

4 


j' 


- 



» •' * * h ' ■ 

4 •• .44 •*> . I ^ 

. • . ■ >t.T* 




•' -■?' 


-4 > ■ 


\ 




zV. 

>*• • 


/ 


'*'4 

4 ' i iM 

't. \ 


'•-te^v.-' . , 

■** ■ '■ t . 

■ ■ .* 


1^^'.■‘ ,i; 


■t 

* . I - , \ 


< ' # 
'.■» 


4.4-». . - • 


-r ■ 


. V ^ ^ ^ • •v»-i»''^ wr‘i*4t.' »• * A * "* r / , 

" ' V.:- .‘'-z v ^ -.z ' » 

4 ;y y‘M r r- ' '^* m' A-J»-‘ •-/•-♦/.•. k"*- ^ •. ^ ft .1 

' -M >• .-j -’: - • "^'• 


^ » 

• . I • 



ft ^ 

. t 




t 


A BOOK OF STRANGE SINS 


as&-' ■■E'i-'i'^’ ^ jAJ^}-:'-‘^V‘-?'f^ ^'.:^^ •::A^ 

■ V^ ' ' vvi' '' 

j*k- / 


" ^ - V /-'i 

> 'vv*^ 




>. I ■ 

'I -7 


• VI** 


» Y 


ifc' 

ft 




vV- . . . .. .. • V / • .vr> ‘ . 


t: ‘ w . 




* ^ 


« ^ 

A 


* •- •/« ' 


' -- *• 


'• -v. :- ^ ■ ..;- 


- >' 

4 


4 ' 







'• ■% 


r ' vQ 




•’»' . v. 


•*v 


-V. V . - 

': . Y‘. 


/ ' • . 




✓ * • 
r 

» • 

< » 


* 1 




1' « 


fX ■ r 


'-■/) 

r. 

CA 


'U 


V- 


‘4r‘ >- 

' * ^ — - •'^l' ' ^ ' • ^ 


•Y ^ 
•v >% 



■• •'-> W' ’ ' i *S?» • * 
in "' 


':• <i '•-. 
‘ «* .' * . 

. ■ .‘ 


W 

* .^^4 ._ . 


' ►. 


.‘^ ••• . *•* 
v> ' 


\ > 

» 

w/ 


‘ *. m.i - ^ 


> 
Y ‘ 


' '. z-. ^i 

■ > s. . . - 1 

■- - » -ir j 



:'.4. ?•:; 

-v ^ .1 


• I 




- - ’ ^ 

•?' ' * v I 

',^- J ' 


fj 

A- " 




'■y. 


V A 


• -'■^ ■ f' j 


f^ - ' . ’ f- 




y ' • 

I 


* •> »■ 

•% — 

^ f 





~4 • 


-Y'. J",*.; . 

* -lT’ ‘ 


.*_ ^.r 


'* '■• I'^t’ 

T.. * 

iv; - '*• 


' r -*j(» 

f"* 



* -4. 

« 'V 


• •'*1 




V • 


< 


' Y 


^^^ . • y^ 

• . - • i ' < 


^ * • , 

% 


»• ^ ^ 


2 .. » 


> 'y^'- 




« / 


» 


A • 




.S 


y-:v :;■'■■• 






. 1 f ^ 


.u, . 

• . • t 


,"*. - 


•- 4- 
« r- I 


, >r-.^ 


I • ^ * ^ A ^ ^ A 


'U 


.V . • 


.H' ? 




■ .X ♦• •'•' 


t 

^ r 


* /ir- 


V -v 




•#: 




— * I 

av 


4 

*. 


> - . 

■ . . Kify 

_V* ' ' ' ^ i ^ * •» 

^ ‘ . A*i. .r^- 


0 

r 

, ' 



«« 

VvX* • ^ 

4 ^ 

• 

i* 1 


■-.‘ , .'i^' 

’. ■ .• 

*• * • 

0 


0 

• ' >t 

1 

\ 

« • . 

• 

« 

' « 


* ^ 

4 




n 


, <> 


' . 4f ■ 

•*. • - -4 • ■ 

. ' 

k . , 

I ^ 


.y • 


. Y-' 


' ' -Ai ’• 


A 


s«? 


» . • 
1. 


^ * 

■X 




■-Ar, yU!P ^^4 ^ .-^ ■ .» , .. . •.. ; . -^i*> — ,- • . , . r, 

^ *■ I . -. ^. A- • y y7. V . 4- V / 'i .4- < ^ 



^.•-/ jCf •;-. . ,. 
.V' 


<- 


I > 

- i' 


•jy . 


' ' - 
J -• - ft A . ^ 


. ( 


■ • 

. . •. . J t ^ 

;'•••; \ ^ 

- . r t .. 

- * ^ ft' V ' 


•A- ' 


A BOOK OF STRANGE SINS 


/ 



COULSON KERNAHAN 

Author of “ A Dead Man’s Diary " 


Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap .” — Galatians vi., 7. 



WARD, LOCK & BOWDEN. LIMITED 


15 EAST TWELFTH STREET 
1894 

[All rights reserved.] 




\ 






Copyright, 1893 
BY 

WARD, LOCK & BOWDEN, Limited. 


( 




LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON 


A TRUE POET 

AND 

A FRIEND OF FRIENDS 



. ^ 


.. ••■ I' ■*' t- . ^ ‘ . ‘ 

fc v(>v V .' V ■ '^v,:.v:^> : 

•<a' ■«- V -•#, ' ^ .> •* ’ -*^ 1 ^ *'' • • . . 

■ -ti, "'.' -'. . *•’ * 

t* *' 

V‘ V'-' /■ •* 

--v,* ' r -r ^ riL ^ ► 


A ^ ' 

5 ». . '.% •'< • ^ 




^i■• •? 

S 


'>: - 
t ’>* *'* V 


• » w ». ' -• 

f-- 


■/»;• ^*j* 


/.■' •'•i- . ' * ••■ k /• i.*i* ' . - ^ ^ 'I' • ** 

- -i^ ■ . " - '■ /V ' H- • ■ 

• r‘ ■•• *' •■> ■ »‘ * ' . ^ ..■ ;• '^. f- 

r- ■' ^ '.■,-•>.?■ ■^- 

.,v .■ ^ s , ^ . : ; - .;., • •>■ 

':?v -' ‘ . r - -- - • «•;, • 


*> 
• I 


/ ■ ^ 

' ■%f* 

{ 


' ) * 


. ’'I 

f 


■ ; 


'. • <. 


*> 


• . *' 


1 


/-• ■ ■ \\'7 

’ • ■ ' \ • . « - ' . -^ • 

: •.'<*, vw . ' • / • * • -4 

V »• » • ' 

• - • . ^ . » _ • I • 



/' 


.. '•■ Vv C \-vv;/ 


V : ^ , : i.-jCi 




^ <■? 


« 

« 




•■ i 




^ ' • t. ■ ' 

’••.** ,4 

V* >. "•■' 

^ V ' 


» . 


X 4 ^ 




> ?. 

■' -* 




j. .j' ^ 

•' > '» * A* • _•*■■ ' 


V 

•t 



t 




• ^ 

i ^ 


I 


^ I 








/ 


P R E F At E 





PREFACE. 


HEN the Fourth Edition of “A Dead Man’s 



Y Y Diary” was in the press, my friend, Mr. James 
Bowden (of Ward, Lock & Bowden, Limited, the pub- 
lishers), whose generous and honourable treatment in 
regard to the first book of a young and inexperienced 
author I shall not soon forget, was of opinion that, as 
the First, Second and Third Editions were published 
anonymously, it would be well if the Fourth appeared 
with a preface by myself. I did not however feel that 
I had anything to say which was of sufficient import- 
ance to warrant me in thus specially coming forward to 
say it, but in publishing my second book I may perhaps 
be permitted to avail myself of the opportunity to ex- 
press my cordial thanks to the readers and the reviewers 
who found something in my first book to praise, and 
the hope that I have profited by their strictures to 
those who found much in it to condemn, as well as to 
make an explanation in regard to the title and aim of 
the present volume. 


PREFACE. 


ii 

And first I would say that this is not a collection 
of short stories. It is true that before the publication 
of my first book, I assisted in bringing about the pre- 
mature dissolution of several promising magazines by 
contributing short stories to their pages; and it is true 
too that after the appearance of that volume, a certain 
publisher was unwise enough to offer me a not unde- 
sirable sum of money if I would allow him to collect 
the best of them in a volume. 

That I refused my consent has been a constant 
source of consolation to me when I find myself in dan- 
ger of losing my literary self respect. We suffer now-a- 
days from a plethora, rather than from a scarcity of 
book production, and unless a writer have something to 
say, which is different from, or better said than what 
has been said before, he will earn a more lasting title 
to our regard by selling sound sugar at honest prices 
than by publishing a book. 

It is likely enough that my own words will be held 
by some to sentence me to the Siberia of the scales 
and the sugar-scoop; but whether it be so or not I can 
at least claim to have practised what I preach, for it is 
now more than three years since my ^^Dead Man’s 
Diary” was published, during which, with the exception 
of having had the pleasure and the privilege of acting 


PREFACE. 


iii 

as assistant editor to Mr. Frederick Locker-Lampson in 
the preparation of the new edition of his “Lyra Ele- 
gantiarum/’ and the contribution of a few critical arti- 
cles to the Fortnightly Review , my name has not been 
before the reading public in any prominent way. 

With the exception of “The Lonely God/’ and 
“The Garden of God,” which by the advice of my 
ever-honored and ever-loved friend, and more than 
friend, the late G. T. Bettany, I wrote to relieve the 
sombre tone which pervades the rest of the volume, all 
the papers in this book have, or are meant to have 
unity and connection, inasmuch as each is a study of 
some form of crime or sin. Drink, Lust, Murder, Soul- 
Murder, Pride, Suicide, and last not least, the sordid, * 
respectable, self-seeking and self-righteousness which are 
often more deadening to the spiritual nature than actual 
vice or sin, are dealt with either separately or in con- 
nection with some other form of human weakness. 

That I shall be accused of straining after what is 
sensational and morbid I fully foresee, and upon this 
subject I wish to say an anticipatory word. 

I deny that in these studies I have dwelt unduly 
upon the details of any crime or sin. Such details are 
to my thinking, what the hands of a watch or clock 
are to its works, and are of importance only as in- 


IV 


PREFACE. 


dications of the state of the restless, unseen, but 
infinitely interesting influences at work within ; and in- 
deed crime or sin, in itself and apart from the con- 
ditions which bring it about, runs as much to one 
pattern, and is scarcely a more interesting subject of 
study than are the hands of the watch or clock to which 
I have likened it. It is not the sordid particulars of 
crime and sin which I have tried to lay bare in these 
pages, but the influence of these crimes and sins upon 
the men and women who commit them. It is into the 
secrets of souls and not of sins into which I have 
attempted to look, and whatever there is that is sensa- 
tional or morbid in this volume, is, as far as I am 
concerned, merely a matter of detail and background. 

COULSON KERNAHAN. 

Thrums,” 

Southend-on-Sea, 

August 24 th^ i8g3. 


CONTENTS 


THE LONELY GOD 
A STRANGE SIN 
A SUICIDE . 

THE GARDEN OF GOD 
THE APPLES OF SIN 
A LITERARY GENT 
A LOST SOUL 


PA.GH 

3 

15 

55 

79 

95 
125 
. 183 






' C'*- ' . 

’, ..' ?,.- •#• •■ ► .c 

f-;- ■■ . • . V.'. 


»V‘ 




V -- V ' f, , '• ‘f • '* 


> 7 . 


« 






, • » % 


« « 


•t • 







► - ■• 


t> 


V 

*: V '' I ' 


• .;• • 
< ; 


- <• * ^r* *• *• • k* *.*•* 

/.. • -r .•-. •♦. ^ 








»» V 




* *. Tl . *• 


' -v. 

Jt.. . • .• 


■.' 'v, W 

' 

m • • 



' • •^•J4 



« t.* 


•'*>' * 
4-' - • 




* ’A* 5 

* T< -<•.# 




V • ;■' <•-: .. -.i. ‘ ■'-' *'" * 

-"V . -^ I r ^ ... 

k t'.M ^ • • • <- . -~ ^ •» ^ V>- 

^ V ■' : v‘‘ ‘ A’ 


• . *• .*’ ■ 


• ^ Tf 


i . 


•I ^ ; • ’■ •’ . ' V 2JLt 

■'{*• APflF*L 

•»1,J -' .^.. . p 

^ . 'k ^ 'J ' — • •■■ ■- •■ •- • - 

•.,‘.rf-7* / (t. 


• ✓ 
I 


iLvrfiis^tS. * \ - j. % .A*. ^ ‘ ... ^ _. ..» ^ 


THE LONELY GOD. 



^ ^ - •.,:: /- • ...V'* 

^ •. r*. ' u ■ ^ * ^ ■ ■ \ ..• ^ ^ ^fl|n 



XT?. • •“ ^Ar . -• ' r - • ' ' 


» 'T * . 




- ” -■ vv'^. ,;^ 

*=">^y " V ' '-4 



% - 5 ^ %.. “ 


pV-**'. ‘ • ' -. -■. V . 


w;;; 

.• • V 

^ f* >. v. . . - 

•♦ * >» • • .,. 


t i ,• ’ '.'W ’ 


• : ,jt* • < 


V ;' 

• w* 

•n 1 







* * •» 


. .. ■-••<• V $ • . "y \^ JJsm .' 


* » 


^ ♦ 4 .• 


7 ! 


« 

■ V 


• .» 


>. : . 




V •» 




. ' < •^-. " 

r * 




iO* 


^ / 


Wfc. ' ^ -m •.” I • 

‘ -'. u'.er* T^ -, - 

*1 ? V . /»:U* - ■ -fc- ^ 

* • ^"V . . • • • 


-i'" - 


-2^Sf . J . 

r - 


»• . . %✓. 

► 


. i . * 


' r • 




.. .-•r'f ‘ ■ 

• 

^ \. • 


♦ 


i . .-. 



A''' 


lr‘\ ,' 

- I * 

> - ■. » - ^ - 




V 

• . 




' C’ - ' ' •• 

■" '.-^r -• <■’*''* *' 












' 

^ » 


■ 1 

V 


* t 





r. r 


* ■'' *♦ /' ’ - ' '• ' ■'• - *. ** .V- :/. -i-T -.‘L 

v;-'>S-ivS 




« % . * " . !♦ 

• -v- >• . . • - 

4 ,»* V 


.i ' . 




.« *■ 


*J' *■•.• •• kri-^ V 4 . .• • • . ^ ’ • ■ - • 

t''v' ’■ « . ; ^ r».. .. . ■•' .O^.-v * ■ < IS-. ’J 






THE LONELY GOD, 


MAN lay on his bed at midnight, and 



dreamt that he stood alone by the sea, 
and that his hour of death was nigh. 

He looked out upon the black and intermin- 
able waste of waters, and up to the changeless 
stars in the unpitying sky as the mariner gazes 
upon a new and unknown land which he is ap- 
proaching ; and he told himself that soon he 
should know the secrets of sea, and sky. 

And as he stood, there blew from the gates 
of night and across the sea, a wind that made 
him shiver less with physical cold than with a 
sense of soul desolation and loneliness ; a wind 
which chilled the heart of him even more than 
the body. 

And as he looked again upon the windy and 
cloud-swept sky, and to the cold and steely glit- 
ter of the silent stars, his lonely spirit, losing it- 
self in the infinite abyss, turned sick and giddy 


/ 


4 


THE LONELY GOD. 


at the thought of dying, and reeled shuddering 
to earth again. 

And the man thought of the woman he loved, 
the wife of his heart and mother of his children, 
and that if he and she might but die together — 
if he might but set out with her hand in his, he 
should no longer fear to make death’s journey ; 
and, even as he so thought, he awoke with 
pounding heart and panting breath ; awoke to 
shudder at the darkness and the loneliness, and 
with a nameless fear lying at the centre of life, 
like the lurking shadow of an unknown, unseen 
foe. 

And as he lay he heard the low breathing ot 
his sleeping wife, and with a sigh of glad relief, 
and all sense of lonesomeness gone, the man 
closed his eyes and fell asleep. 

And again he dreamed a dream in which he 
thought that he stood in the presence of God. 

Whether he had been borne to the infinite 
regions which stretch on and away, and yet 
away, and yet again away beyond the limits of 


THE L OH ELY GOD, 


our universe ; or whether he were still on the 
earth ; or had soared to a distant star, or to the 
vast and void sky spaces that lie between the 
worlds ; or had crept into the narrow chamber 
of the human soul, — the man knew not, but he 
was aware in some wonderful way of all that 
was taking place on all God’s myriad and mar- 
velous worlds. 

He saw circling planets sweep faster and 
faster on their ever-narrowing orbit, until at last 
they fell and flew, like moths to a candle, to feed 
the flaming furnace of the sun ; and he looked 
upon his own home, and saw the billowy rise 
and fall of his sleeping wife’s bosom, and heard 
the cry of the child which lay in a cot by her 
side. 

He. gazed upon burnt-out worlds, moons that 
had once been astir with life, and heard their 
cooling and cinderous surfaces crack into chasm 
and cave ; and he looked into the bowels of the 
earth, and saw strange creatures breeding and 
sporting amid the central fires. 


6 


THE LONELY GOD, 


He watched comets, those vagabonds of the 
heavens, wandering gipsy-like between the 
worlds; or weaving out-lying system to out-lying 
system, like nebulous shuttlecocks of the skies ; 
and he saw into the secret workings of human 
souls. 

He looked upon the planet Jupiter, that lab- 
oratory of God, and beheld moving athwart the 
thin atmosphere, strange shapes, uncanny as a 
half-formed, prematurely-born babe, that seemed 
neither spirit nor flesh, but which he knew were 
the soul-embryos of creatures which, developing 
by progressive stages and from age to age, 
should, in the aeons to be, become beings infi- 
nitely greater than man, and scarcely less glori- 
ous than God ; and he peered beneath the 
earth’s surface, and watched the anxious run- 
ning to and fro of innumerable ants. 

Then raising his head the man looked into 
the eyes of God, and saw eternity lying therein. 

And at that sight the man fell back with a cry 
like that of one smitten by the lightning, and 


THE LONELY GOD. 


7 


with the very soul of him sick and swooning 
with fear. 

But in a voice of infinite tenderness, God 
spake to the man, bidding him be of good cheer. 

And God said : “ Art thou he who feared 
death because of its loneliness ? ” 

And the man said : “ I am he.'’ 

And to him the Almighty spake again : 

Thou diest alone, but I live alone ; and as is 
the sound which thou hearest in the hollow con- 
volutions of a shell, to the roar of the central 
sea, so is thy loneliness to Mine. When God 
throws His arms around a soul and draws that 
soul away from its companions, and to Himself, 
then is that soul very lonely, but the loneliness 
is but the being gathered to the heart of God!' 

Then said the man : “By Thee all that is in 
heaven above or in the earth beneath was 
created. Thou hast but to speak the word, and 
lo ! a legion of angels are at Thy side, waiting 
and willing to do Thy bidding, and to bear Thee 
company by night or by day.” 


8 


THE LONELY GOD, 


But God made answer : “ That which I create, 
be it angel or archangel, is but My creature, and 
can never be My companion.” 

And again the man: “Thou art God the 
Eternal One, Ruler of Earth and Sea. Is it 
nothing to Thee that all men worship Thee and 
hold Thee in reverence ? ” 

But to him the Almighty made answer : 
“The thought of God is, to most men, but a 
plank to which they hope to cling when the 
waters of death are closing over their heads. 
How many are there, thinkest thou, who love 
the God they have never seen, as thou lovest 
thy wife and child ? ” 

And the man said: “Thou hast but to say 
the word, and behold all men must love Thee.” 

But God answered him : “The love which I 
compel, I care not for.” 

Then said the man: “Thou art God, the 
Omnipotent One. Sun, moon, and stars sprang 
into being at Thy bidding. Thou hadst but to 
say, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light; 


THE LONELY GOD. 


9 


and Thou didst but breathe upon unclean and 
inanimate clay, and lo ! it became an immortal 
soul, clothed in a form divinely fair, and fash- 
ioned in Thine own likeness ; and man, the heir 
of eternity and image of God, came into being. 
To Thee all things are possible ; and Thou hast 
but to say, ‘ Let be ! ’ to set at Thy side another 
God, like even unto Thyself, that so Thou 
mayst be alone no more.” 

And yet again God said: “That which I 
create is but My creature, and can never be my 
companion ; and from My loneliness, even Mine 
own omnipotence is powerless to deliver me. 

“ Rememberest thou not of Him who was 
slain on Calvary, that men taunted Him, say- 
ing, ‘ He saved others : Himself He cannot 
save ? ’ 

“ Even so from the loneliness wherefrom 
God saveth others. Himself God cannot save. 

“ The cry in loneliness that rang from Cal- 
vary’s Cross rings throughout creation still. 
Thou lookest out into the night, and thou shud- 


10 


THE LONELY GOD. 


derest — not because of the blackness that 
broods between earth and sky, but because 
thou hast looked as into an abyss into the lone- 
ly soul of God. Nature is lonely because of 
God’s loneliness. On every breeze is borne 
— were the ear of man attuned to hear it — the 
sound of innumerable lamentations, which is 
Nature’s echo of God’s lonely cry. 

“ God shudders — and, over the shining sur- 
face of the sea, a sudden tremor flits. 

“God hides His countenance — and the sun- 
shine fades from meadow and field, and dark- 
ness covers the face of the sky. 

“But on the shadowless, shining peaks of 
Eternity, God sits lonely forever ; and into His 
loneliness neither man nor Nature can enter. 
Nay, of such loneliness as God’s, the soul of 
man cannot even conceive, for man’s death is 
not more lonely than God’s life. 

“ / am the Loneliness : God is Loneliness and 
Loneliness GodL 


THE LONELY GOD. 


11 


The voice ceased, and the man awoke, and 
knew that he had been dreaming. 

Outside the wind made moan continually, and 
from the tossing tree tops there came a sound 
like the ceaseless sighing of the sea. 

And, for a moment, the man gazed into the 
black and brooding night, whence it seemed to 
him that eyes of infinite sadness looked out of 
the darkness into his own. 

In the next, he had drawn the curtain and 
turned from the window, that in the warmth 
and light of the room, and the caresses of his 
waiting wife, he might cease even to remember 
that he had dreamed a dream. 

Yet sometimes, as he stands and listens to 
the sea at midnight, there seems borne to him 
on every breeze a sound like that of innumer- 
able lamentations, and then the man thinks 
again of his dream, and fancies that in sobbing 
surge and wailing wind he hears the cry of the 
lonely God. 





7^, 




r ^ • k ' 




* ’ r 

tL 


W •* 


t r* 


- 






■ ^-‘^‘ ' ^ 


4 

^ w 


‘ ^ »> ; 


r 

V' ■- '■■- T"' ■-' 

^ w::^ ' ' V : .'f^'^:, ^ : . ■ ■ I- - ,, 

- . . ■ ' ■■ . , ■ * u *-' 

r ,*-N- w ^ ■ \ 

,i->;: w’-'.- -.- ■ i^--.-- -V.- -Si: *7 " ’ 




“•** 


V ^ 
# ^ 


!>»' "k' ■' . -. 

7- ' '' • •'■ 


^ ♦ 


An 


« J 


*ifc. i 


-> 


. « « 


- >T‘ 


T 


t 


\ 


r 


“v‘* ' 7 ‘* ■* 

, ' • 
rv=^r\7k-. • . ; 




v'k 







. c- Af . . - 


4" 

r^* 


tf k 




I ^ 


9 


j.'^.h ^ r-': 




' - . •': 
* \ 

^ ] 


_ A n 

- t J 

/• 






•. r . - ... .^ , 


r w 


A < 

« 




/ 




« 


t. ^ 






,>■ -5’i. ^-,. r -.f- -. r 

•' ••" 'ftC f- ' 'I** ' 

** ■** ''•>^,' 


I 

>' 


• m ^ 

V ' ' ' 

^ — A 

• 4 « ^ » 


" * - 
• t 


^ A 4 

. * ^ ^ V 




»- 


« •« 

I 


Vs 

r 


l^r.- , . 


r. 


V 


I 

» V.' 


.s 


rv 


>s ♦ 


«: 


■r 2 


% 


^ » 


• « 




. 4 '. . 


.•V.' 


^4^.: 


4 * 


m:r ' 


?f. ■ 


^ . 


V 

I .• 


Ji^'‘ 

- ;■ •>. ' 

; V- 

■ li • * * 


* - ’ * » 


0 

• . » 
«. 


•'r 

« 




1 . ./ 


■ \ .. 

^ •<44- t'*^’ 
'"V- •^”4 A ■■,^' 

* ) -r *■-• 






>. 

A 


t * 


S' f - V 

V -V • * ... •- -ll^ 

/'>> 4 <. . •- ,. g^.<^ -V . '% . ‘ 


r: 





, 4'% ^ 

It ••• 




^ * 

► 4 


i “• • • t 




v^- • '- 


V 




.'1 


'I 


^ .y • 1 




. -v 4- ; 


> 


•V .A 


. 1 -‘'' ?<': . ,. ;.V ,• : ■ • • 





‘ 'V -.‘ir' T 



^-^4. \ I f r' • *' ’ N > -s •?* * * -4- C ^ - I ^ - A^‘ ^ 4 - ^ 4^.5 ^ K I - >T^*H 

'•'-' ryi;' 7k'*7!y- U V /-i.. .-;>i,' ‘v ^ & '■ 

^ •*» . ^ A ^ -4** i ^ ♦ J A .* ^Sy ^ * -S* . .-•j^ 4k 4 <1 - ^ M0- ^ 






4 


4 



\ 




* 



9 


i 








/ 





» 




j 

# 








^ SmANGE SIN. 


9 • 


/ 


,.- j 



r 



« 




✓ 



0 

t 


t «. 



, ju - ^ r 





X . • ..A I • 

* ■ ^ ‘^ • •- 

• > 




> stvni 

.«■> • ■ ^ . • Li 



't^■ ■ 

iV- 




- ■^'i' 

y;, 

. '*• ■'. -z^ >^ 


•vj" 


'.■ ^ 


•1 W-*^ r- • 

■’■'V '■ .’V-'. , • 

. . . . - 

r-r V*-. . -J,' , 




A - 


A. 


, V \5» • ^BSl * El ! 

4 ■ ^ ji iCWhrf ; 


- V 


'i ^ 


4 *. .t • 


, 1 ^^ 
r' *.'*. o- 


'-‘v- ■ * 




K - V 

¥ : 


^C-'S-' ^"•■ ‘r t-.-- .’ " 

:t v.-; . 


^ t 


i * - , 


.*rt^'^' ‘- ^ ^ ' . ■*• * » • 1 • e ^ - J:.- V» '4 • - . * 

■•■\' ■■/. ' /'v. ■ ■ ' -'-r^-'’U;. ^ 

Kl| n* 7 ^ / ■• _ I • . ^ • - - v’^i . .’■* V •■ • ' “ % ■ * * r 


A ■ ^ 


: ♦?• . 




^ /-v 

*4r, *» 

■• >*r ] r 


^ i 


»«v 


A. •:!* 


1 


• w ■ 

. ' J 





--V. ,.. 

’V / 

^ lit" *'" - ■' 


^ -.•■ ' ''** WTf ^ * 

4 - .; • V - ‘ : 


, - ^■.£'' /> % /L -5 

^ • . /V :: . i. kv, V-. 



A STRANGE SIN 


Chapter I. 

MR. MICHAEL ARMSTRONG. 

N O one who was not brought into daily con- 
tact with the poor of East Weerham could 
realize the honour and reverence with which the 
name of the man whom I will call in these pages 
Michael Armstrong was associated ; and only 
those who knew of the long series of generous 
deeds, which had won for him the love of the 
people, and who were aware, as I was, of the 
purity and nobility of his life, could understand 
the intense excitement and indignation which 
were aroused in the district, when it became 
known that he was in prison on a disgraceful 
charge. 

Mr. Armstrong, as I recollect him, was tall 
and gaunt, with a stiff carriage and angular. 


15 


16 


A SmANGE SIN. 


square shoulders. His limbs were so fleshless 
that his clothes seemed literally to hang upon 
him ; and he had the appearance of a man who 
had, at one time of his life endured terrible pri- 
vations, which had left him shattered in nerves 
and in health. So emaciated was he that his 
head always reminded me of a skull — and, in- 
deed, the bones of jaw, cheek and forehead 
could distinctly be seen under the tense and 
tightly-stretched skin of his sunken face. Thin 
hair of a grizzled red was brushed across a high 
and wide forehead, which was developed to an 
extraordinary fullness at the temples ; and deep- 
set red-brown eyes glittered with unnatural 
brightness beneath the overhanging brows and 
shaggy red eyebrows. A coarse, red mous- 
tache stood out so stiffly over lips which had the 
grey, death-stricken look of a consumptive that 
the corners of the mouth were scarcely con- 
cealed; and his skinny, knotty-knuckled, and 
yellow hands shook with a strange nervousness 
as he swiftly rolled up and lit the innumerable 


A STRANGE SIN. 


17 


cigarettes, without one of which he was seldom 
seen. 

He and my father were friends of many 
years’ standing, and when the failure of a bank, 
followed almost immediately by my father’s 
death, left me penniless, ^r. Armstrong, who 
was a man of means and a bachelor, insisted 
that I should make my home with him, offering 
me a sufficient income in return for my services 
as his private secretary. He was, I think, the 
most melancholy and moody man I have ever 
known, and every year his melancholy seemed 
to become more marked and more morbid. 

To what it was attributable I do not to this 
day know, except in a vague way, and my 
father, as he has often told me, never knew at 
all. That it was not, as was sometimes sug- 
gested, due to religious causes seemed evident 
from the fact that Mr. Armstrong never spoke 
of, or made any outward profession of religion, 
and never under any circumstances entered a 
chapel or church. 


18 


A STRANGE SIN 


But, on the other hand, the whole tone and 
tenor of his life seemed to me, who knew him 
best, intensely religious. For sickness, suffer- 
ing, or want he had an intuitive instinct, and I 
have known him ready with sympathy or assist- 
ance in cases where not even intimate friends 
had suspected that of sympathy or assistance 
there was any need. 

Was a hard-working family struggling to pay 
its way or to keep up an appearance of respect- 
ability under the pinch of want, Mr. Armstrong 
was sure, by some mysterious means, to become 
acquainted with the facts, and to hit upon a 
delicately-devised plan by which he might assist 
without wounding what he considered honour- 
able pride. 

When diphtheria was decimating one of the 
poorest and most squalid quarters of the town, 
it was Mr. Armstrong who, as was frequently 
said, “saved more lives than the doctors,” and 
who, heedless of his own health or of the dan- 
gers of infection, gave himself up, body and 


A STRANGE SIN 


19 


soul, to the service of the sufferers. One would 
scarcely suppose that so melancholy a man 
would prove a welcome visitor in sickness; but, 
sincere and unaffected as his melancholy un- 
doubtedly was, he never carried it with him to 
the cottages of the poor or to the sick-room. 
Women of all ranks he invariably treated with 
a certain gentle deference which, though very 
marked, was perfectly natural to him ; and I 
never yet saw the child in whom he did not seem 
to inspire an instinctive liking and trust. 

All this I learned from my father, or discov- 
ered little by little for myself, for if ever there 
was a man who did good by stealth it was Mich- 
ael Armstrong. He had indeed, the most sin- 
gular and morbid dislike to having his benevo- 
lence known or even alluded to. Gentle as was 
his manner generally, an allusion to his gener- 
osity would lead to a passionate outburst of 
fierce invective which, after it was over, would 
leave him moody, morose and irritable for days. 
More than one well-meaning clergyman or min- 


20 


A STRANGE SIN. 


ister under whose notice some charitable deed 
of Mr. Armstrong’s had directly or indirectly 
come, and who had ventured on an appreciative 
word, has to my knowledge, been given to un- 
derstand that his remarks were considered as 
an impertinent and unwarrantable intrusion 
upon the private affairs of another. 

Mr. Armstrong’s account books, which are in 
my possession, show that he subscribed large 
amounts anonymously to many deserving insti- 
tutions, although his name never, under any 
circumstances, appeared in subscription lists. 
And yet, if invited personally to subscribe to 
these very institutions, or if called upon by 
those who were collecting for some local charity, 
to which he had already contributed anony- 
mously, he would refuse in so curt and churlish 
a manner that the request was not likely to be 
repeated. 

At first people feared him, and spoke of him 
as an unmannerly bear ; but no one can do 
good, day by day, in a country town, no matter 


A STRANGE SIN 


21 


how stealthily he do it, and keep his well-doing 
a secret. Little by little the truth leaked out, 
and while the upper and middle classes re- 
garded Mr. Armstrong as an eccentric but noble- 
hearted man, the poor of the district simply 
worshipped him. 


Chapter II. 


THE ARREST. 


HINGS went on in this way for many years, 



1 during each of which Mr. Armstrong 
seemed to grow more melancholy, brooding 
and careworn, until one day the town, and in 
fact the whole neighborhood, was thrown into 
a state of intense and unprecedented excite- 
ment by the news that he was in custody upon 
a serious charge. I do not propose, in this 
narrative, to enter upon anything which is not 
necessary to a right understanding of essentials, 
and into the particulars of Mr. Armstrong’s 
offence I need not go further than to say it was 
one which in a man of his reputation and posi- 
tion would be considered peculiarly disgraceful. 

That he had committed, or was even capable 
of committing, such an offence was everywhere 
declared a moral impossibility ; and that an 


22 


A STRANGE SIN 


23 


explanation, which would effectually clear him, 
would sooner or later be forthcoming was held 
by all. 

Even men who, because their own lives were 
known to be low and dissolute, might have been 
supposed ready to believe any charge against 
the character of another, the blamelessness of 
whose life was a silent condemnation of their 
own — even these men refrained, for once, from 
trying to make capital out of the affair ; and 
some of them did not hesitate to express their 
hope that the accusation against Mr. Armstrong 
would turn out to be unfounded. 

And then, like the proverbial thunder out of 
a clear sky, came the intelligence that Mr. 
Armstrong had not only admitted his guilt, but 
had absolutely refused to defend himself or to 
allow himself to be defended. 

Great as was the shock which the news of 
his arrest had been, his admission of guilt was 
a still greater shock, and for the first few 
moments all who heard it looked at each other 


24 


A STRANGE SIN 


with faces of blank, mistrustful dismay, on 
which were plainly written the questions : 
‘‘Whom, then can we trust?” and, “Are all 
men alike equally corrupt and rotten at heart ? ” 
But this wavering in the respect which was 
felt for Mr. Armstrong was only temporary, and 
the reaction in his favor, by which it was imme- 
diately followed, carried him at once, as on the 
crest of a huge billow, to a still higher place in 
the public sympathy, for the belief that the 
crime had been committed during a moment of 
mental aberration had scarcely been suggested 
before it was universally accepted as the one 
and only explanation of the case ; and great in- 
dignation was expressed that no medical opin- 
ion was taken with a view to sanctioning his 
transference from the prison to an asylum. 


Chapter III. 


THE TRIAL. 


HE town of East Weerham, where all this 



1 occurred, was at one time famous for the 
collieries, which gave employment to some hun- 
dreds of men ; and it so fell out that my 
friend’s arrest and trial took place within a few 
weeks after a fearful accident in which many 
lives were lost. 

Mr. Armstrong, who, notwithstanding his, 
haggard looks and attenuated frame, was a 
man of considerable physical strength and ca- 
pable of great endurance, had been one of the 
most active and hard-working of the “rescue” 
party. He was in the first “cage” which de- 
scended the burning mine, and had risked his 
life again and again in the perilous task of 
searching for the dead. 


25 


26 


A SmANGE SIN. 


It may well be supposed that the heroism and 
untiring devotion which he had displayed dur_ 
ing this terrible time had endeared him more 
than ever to the hearts of the people, and it is 
no matter for surprise that his arrest, almost 
immediately afterwards, should have aroused 
intense excitement and sympathy among the 
colliers, many of whom were then out of em- 
ployment on account of the temporary stop- 
page of work necessitated by the disaster. 

As the hour for the trial approached, a vast 
crowd, consisting of these unemployed colliers, 
and of men, women and even children from 
the surrounding villages and the poorest parts 
of the district, collected in the large market 
place, where the town hall was situated, and all 
in such a state of distress and excitement that 
the police became not only anxious but alarmed. 

That the case should excite extraordinary 
local interest was to be expected ; but as no 
one, not even the poor people themselves — for 
the affair was in no sense an organized demon- 


A SmANGE SUV. 


27 


stration — had anticipated such a gathering, the 
necessity of increasing the police staff had not 
occurred to the authorities. The whole of the 
local constabulary did not amount to twenty 
men, all told ; and as the nearest town of any 
size was fifteen miles distant, it would be im- 
possible in the event of a riot, to obtain rein- 
forcements within several hours. 

Two minutes after the doors were open the 
court was full. The handful of police, who 
had tried to stem the current, and maintain 
some show of order, was practically powerless 
against so great a number, and the judge 
took his seat under such circumstances as 
have probably never before occurred. 

That such a scene as that which I am about to 
describe should have been permitted in a court 
of justice will doubtless seem incredible to 
some readers of this narrative ; and I admit that 
the action of the judge was an extraordinary 
departure from precedent, and was, from the 
point of order, quite indefensible. But the 


28 


A STRANGE SIN 


entire circumstances under which the trial took 
place were so exceptional that it seemed to be 
tacitly recognized throughout the court that this 
was no case in which the nice rules of legal 
etiquette could be enforced. And moreover 
the reader must remember that what I am de- 
scribing took place twenty years ago and in a 
small county town in the Northern midlands. 


Chapter IV. 


GOD BLESS HIM ! ” 

M r. ARMSTRONG’S was the first case on 
the list, and I shall never forget the 
scene which took place when his name was called 
and his familiar figure was seen to enter the dock 
from the back. The spectacle of the man they 
so honoured and loved standing in that shameful 
place was too much for those present and as 
if by common consent, there broke from that 
great crowd a cry like that of a wounded ani- 
mal, which was followed by a torrent of weep- 
ing and wailing from the women, as the people 
stood up, some with outstretched hands and 
streaming eyes, to sob, “ God bless him ! ” 
while those who were near the dock struggled 
and pressed to shake his hand, or even, in one 
or two instances, to kiss the sleeve of his coat. 


29 


30 


A STRANGE SIN 


Scandalized at so unheard-of an outrage upon 
the majesty of the law, the dozen or so police- 
men who were in the court struggled and 
pushed about vigorously among the packed and 
heaving masses ; but their indignant threats 
and cries of “ Order ! ” passed unregarded, 
and indeed, were scarcely heard among the 
sobs and benedictions of the people. 

Under ordinary circumstances the judge 
would have given orders for the court to be 
cleared. To do so in this instance would have 
been to provoke a riot ; and after a short con- 
sultation with the head of the police, he very 
wisely adopted a course which, if it set, as I have 
already said, precedent and legal etiquette at 
defiance, had the result of quieting the people 
and preventing a disturbance. 

“ This expression of your respect and affec- 
tion for Mr. Armstrong ” — I noticed that at no 
stage of the trial did the judge ever refer to 
the occupant of the dock as the “ prisoner — ” 
“ does you and him honour,” he said, as soon as 


A STRANGE SIN 


31 


he could make himself heard, “ but I cannot 
allow this uproar to proceed, and unless order 
is immediately restored, the Court will rise, 
and the case be sent elsewhere for trial. Such 
a course will only prolong Mr. Armstrong’s 
suspense and anxiety, and I trust that for his 
sake, if for no other reason, you will control 
your feelings.” 

This had some effect in quelling the tumult, 
and Mr. Armstrong, whom it had been thought 
advisable to take out of court lest the uproar 
should result in a riot, and an organized attempt 
at rescue be made, was brought back. 

He had scarcely taken his place again before 
a sickly-looking woman, who had been swept 
in on the crest of the crowd, and carried up 
close to the dock, stretched out a gaunt be- 
shawled arm towards him, while with the other 
she clasped to her bosom a little child, almost a 
baby ; and the wee, white-faced creature, catch- 
ing sight of the familiar features of the prison- 
er, smiled up at him, and held out a baby hand, 


32 


A STRANGE SIN 


as if in expectation of the cake or sweetmeat 
which it had learned to associate with his en- 
trance. 

'‘Don^t believe anything bad against Mr. 
Armstrong, sir,” cried the woman, turning ap- 
pealingly to the judge. “ ’ Im couldn’t do 
nothing bad, if ’im tried. I know ’twas ’im 
saved my poor ’usband’s life down yon mine ; 
and but for Mr. Armstrong, there’s a many ’ere 
as ’ud starved afore now.” 

Again the storm of weeping and wailing 
broke forth as one poor creature after another 
strove vainly, amid the tumult, to bear her shrill 
testimony to the kindly deeds of the prisoner ; 
but up to this point the crowd, except in mani- 
festations of sympathy and affection, had shown 
no disposition to behave other than peacefully. 
At this stage of the proceedings, however two 
policemen, fearing a rush towards the dock, 
took up their position inside it ; and the sight 
of Mr. Armstrong, standing guarded on either 
side like a common felon, called forth such a 


A STRANGE SIN 


33 


roar of rage and indignation, that had not the 
prisoner himself again and again held up his . 
hand, in deprecating and imploring remon- 
strance, a rush would then and there have been 
made to rescue him, and a serious riot would 
undoubtedly have ensued. 


Chapter V. 


“GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY?” 

S OMETHING like order was at last restored 
and the trial proceeded with, the proofs 
which were brought forward of the prisoner’s 
guilt being conclusive and convincing. It so hap- 
pened that, with the exception of the judge 
(and even he, I afterwards learned, had for 
many years been aware of the noble work 
which Mr. Armstrong was doing), nearly all 
who were engaged upon the case were resi- 
dents in the district, and knew the accused per- 
sonally, or were acquainted with the unselfish- 
ness and nobility of his life. It was for this 
reason probably that the prosecution was as 
half-hearted as it was, for the evidence against 
Mr. Armstrong was given and elicited with un- 
concealed reluctance. 


34 


A STRANGE SIN 


35 


When the judge asked, merely as a matter 
of form, if charges of a similar or any other 
nature had been made against the accused in 
the past, the question remained for a moment 
unanswered, not because there could be any 
doubt about a reply, but because, as Mr. Arm- 
strong was unrepresented, some hesitation was 
felt as to who was the proper person to re- 
spond. 

The hesitation was, however, only moment- 
ary — the counsel for the prosecution taking 
upon himself to answer with marked emphasis 
that, on the contrary, no breath of scandal had 
ever attached to Mr. Armstrong’s name before, 
and that there were witnesses without number, 
and representing all classes of society, who 
were willing, and wishful to come forward and 
give evidence as to the universal respect and 
honour in which he was held. 

For a professional adversary to voluntarily 
make an admission which tells against his own 
case is very unusual, and this chivalrous and 


36 


A STRANGE SIN. 


generous speech called forth a burst of enthu- 
siastic cheering, which was again and again re- 
newed, and only died aw^ay when Mr. Arm- 
strong, with his characteristic dislike to hearing 
himself lauded, stepped to the front of the dock, 
and, with a gesture of intense annoyance, ex- 
pressed, somewhat ungraciously, a wish that the 
prosecution would confine its remarks to the 
facts of the case. 

And here I must say something about the 
prisoner’s general aspect and bearing through- 
out the trial. 

When the news of his arrest was first made 
known, the opinion was generally expressed 
that even if he were acquitted and declared to 
leave the court without a stain upon his char- 
acter, the disgrace and humiliation of being 
accused, if only wrongfully, of such an offence 
would kill him. 

His melancholy had always made him appear 
careworn and aged beyond his years, and many 
of his friends expected that when he was seen 


A STRANGE SIN 


37 


in court on the day of which I am writing, it 
would be found that the time between his trial 
and his arrest had sufficed to change him from 
a comparatively young man to an old one. 

Knowing his nervous, excitable and brooding 
temperament as I did, I fully concurred in this 
view, and indeed, feared the worst possible re- 
sults, and I could scarcely believe the evidence 
of my eyes when I saw him enter the dock, 
looking younger by a score of years than he 
had looked before his arrest. His figure was 
more erect, and his bearing more alert and 
vigorous, than it had been within many people’s 
recollection of him. The colour had come back 
to his cheeks, and the light to his eyes, and 
strangest of all, his habitual melancholy seemed 
to have disappeared, and on his face there was 
something of the brightness and beauty ot 
youth. 

That this singular change was attributed, not 
only by the spectators, but by the judge and 
jury — and notwithstanding the prisoner’s having 


38 


A STRANGE SIN 


pleaded guilty — to the consciousness of inno- 
cence, seems likely enough ; and I believe it 
was partly answerable for the evident prejudice 
in his favor with which the case was conducted, 
and for the intense desire to believe the best of 
him which was manifested throughout. 

The look of the man seemed positively in- 
spired, and there was a dignity in his bearing 
and a light on his face which made one think of 
him as a martyr confronting persecution and 
shame for conscience’s sake, rather than as 
a prisoner on his trial for a disgraceful charge. 

The evidence was at last completed, and Mr. 
Armstrong declining to say anything in his de- 
fence, the jury were informed that the time had 
come for them to consider their verdict. 

After a few minutes’ whispering, the foreman 
intimated that there was no necessity to leave 
the box, as they had already come to a decision. 

The judge, at whom the clerk of the court 
glanced as if asking whether or not he was to 
proceed, seemed, now that the decisive moment 


A STRANGE SIN 


39 


had come, scarcely less moved and excited than 
the spectators, and could not trust himself to 
do more than make a hasty gesture of assent 
with his hand ; and then, after the usual for- 
malities, the question was put : 

“ Do you find the prisoner guilty or not 
guilty ? ” 

There was a momentary pause between the 
question and the answer — a pause which, though 
it was only of a few seconds’ duration, seemed 
positively awful in absolute cessation of sound 
and motion — a pause in which every breath was 
held, and in which it seemed as if the very 
hearts of all present were standing still ; and 
then, clear, firm and unhesitating, came the 
answer, “ Not guilty.” 

A choking gasp, as if that great assembly 
had, like one man, come-to suddenly from a 
swoon, quivered in the air, and then — the spell 
was broken, the overwrought nerves gave way, 
and bursting from hundreds of throats, came 
ringing cheer after ringing cheer, and peal after 


40 


A STRANGE SIN 


peal of uncontrollable and hysterical laughter, 
as men shook hands again and again in the 
wildest enthusiasm and excitement, and women 
threw themseives into each other’s arm to laugh, 
to sob, or to pray. 

It did not need that the words “Not guilty ! ” 
should be shouted by those around the door to 
those who thronged the stairway, and thence 
passed on from mouth to mouth, through the 
packed hall and porch, to the waiting masses 
outside. 

They knew outside the meaning of that cheer, 
and took it up, and re-echoed it again and 
again with a roar which threatened to drown 
the joyful din within. 

But in all that scene of delirious gladness and 
boundless excitement one face only looked 
gray and old and stricken ; one form there 
was which seemed, in the moments preceding 
and following the delivery of the verdict to 
pass from youth to age — the form and face of 
the man whom the united voice of the jury had 


A SmANGE SIN, 


41 


declared innocent of the crime with which he 
was charged. 

I watched Mr. Armstrong as he stood up to 
hear the verdict, and could not but notice how 
firm and manly was his bearing. His eyes were 
bright, his face calm and confident, and so youth- 
ful-looking that I could scarcely believe that 
he and the moody, melancholy and time-worn 
man I had known, were one and the same being. 

He seemed to be upheld and sustained by 
some faith and confidence such as inspired the 
martyrs of old ; but as the words, “ Not guilty,’' 
passed the lips of the /oreman, the colour faded 
out from the prisoner’s face and the light from 
his eyes ; and a feeble old man, with a look like 
that of death on his features, sank back into the 
arms of the warders, only to leap up again, and 
to the front of the dock, where, trembling from 
head to foot with emotion, and with both hands 
grasping the bar, he cried, passionately: 

“I am guilty, as God is my witness, and I 
claim to be justly judged ! ” 


Chapter VI. 


A DISPUTED VERDICT. 


SUDDEN, palpitating hush filled the 



r\ crowded court at these words, and then 
something like a start ran through the assem- 
bly as the foreman of the jury, who, it had not 
been noticed, had remained standing, said in a 
clear and incisive voice : 

“I wish to add, my lord, that we are each 
and all firmly convinced that at the time the 
offence with which Mr. Armstrong is charged 
was committed, he must have been in a state 
of mind in which he could not be held responsi- 
ble for his actions, and it is for this reason that 
we return a verdict of ‘ Not Guilty,’ ” 

As the foreman’s last words died away, and 
before the judge could make any remark, the 
prisoner spoke again — at first with an almost 
painful slowness which was evidently the re- 


42 


A STRANGE SIN 


43 


suit of a tremendous effort to master himself, 
but afterwards with consuming passion and fire. 

“ What I did, I did deliberately and wilfully, 
and when I was in full possession of my senses. 
I decline to receive my freedom by means of a 
lie, and .1 call upon you, my lord, to see that 
no personal feeling be allowed to interfere with 
the administration of justice.” 

“There is not one of you,” he continued, al- 
most fiercely, turning as he spoke to the jury, “who 
believes in his heart that I am, or was, mad ; ” 
and then, with a sudden break in his voice, 
“ Some of you — most of you — are my friends. It 
is possible that it may ha'^e been in my power to 
render two or three of you a service. Oh ! if I 
have any claim upon your gratitude or regard 
— if I have ever served you or my fellow towns- 
men, or am in any way entitled to your respect, 
I beg you, I beseech you, I abjure you, to be 
true to your convictions and to your conscience, 
and not to humiliate me by a verdict of acquit- 
tal which you know in your hearts is a lie.” 


44 


A STRAJSiGE SIN. 


Though the silence which fell upon the court 
after this ringing and passionate appeal was 
only of a few seconds’ duration, it was painful 
in its strained intensity, and when it was broken 
by the first word of the judge’s reply, the sense 
of relief was so great that one long-drawn sigh 
escaped from the lips of all. 

He began by pointing out to the jury that 
their verdict was utterly out of order, inasmuch 
as they were not called upon to decide the 
question of Mr. Armstrong’s responsibility or 
irresponsibility. All they were required to do 
was to decide whether he was guilty or not 
guilty of the offence with which he was charged. 
But if they found the accused guilty, there was 
nothing to prevent them from adding that in 
their opinion he should not be held responsible, 
as they were convinced that the offence was 
committed at a time when he was not answera- 
ble for his actions, and it would then remain for 
him, the judge said, to remand Mr. Armstrong 


A SmANGE SIN. 


45 


until medical opinion in regard to his mental 
condition could be obtained. 

When the jury returned to the box after half 
an hour’s deliberation, the foreman stood up to 
say that they were prepared with a re-statement 
of the verdict, in accordance with the judge’s 
remarks. They would comply with the regu- 
lations which it was necessary to observe in 
such circumstances, and return a formal verdict 
of guilty ; but they were one and all convinced 
that the offence was committed when the ac- 
cused was utterly unanswerable for what he did. 

Mr. Armstrong’s protestation of his full re- 
sponsibility in regard to his actions was, the 
jury believed, a common feature in such cases. 
They considered, the foreman went on to say, 
that the circumstances under which the offence 
was committed were such that no one, not ab- 
solutely an idiot, could hope to escape detection 
and conviction. So far from being wanting in 
shrewdness and in common sense, Mr. Arm- 
strong, when in possession of his faculties, and 


46 


A STRANGE SIN. 


notwithstanding his eccentricity, was known to 
be a man of keen perception and exceptional 
clear-sightedness. That such a man — a man 
of high social position and honourable reputation; 
a man who had for twenty years lived openly 
among them, and who, if he had any propensity 
for evil-doing, was in possession of the means 
to follow his inclination where there would be 
little fear of detection — could, when in posses- 
sion of his faculties, be capable of such incredible 
folly as to commit, in the very town in which 
he was universally known, an offence like that 
with which he was charged, could not be seri- 
ously entertained by the jury. And if further 
proof of his mental aberration were needed, the 
jury believed it was to be found, not only in the 
fact that the accused had refused the right to 
be defended — a right to which the lowest crim- 
inal was entitled — but also in the extraordinary 
scene which they had just witnessed, and in his 
persisting, in the face of an acquittal, in de- 
claring his guilt. “Our verdict of ‘guilty' is 


A STRANGE SIN 


47 


then, we wish it to be understood,” said the 
foreman of the jury, in conclusion, “ tantamount 
to a unanimous acquittal. We honour Mr. Arm- 
strong for his noble, if quixotic conscientious- 
ness, in wishing to suffer punishment for an 
offence for which he, mistakenly, believes him- 
self responsible ; but nothing could convince 
us, who know him so well, that he could wil- 
fully commit, or even wish to commit, a dis- 
honourable action.” 

Again a mighty and approving roar broke 
forth from the packed and heaving masses, but 
it ceased as suddenly as it had commenced, 
when the prisoner was seen staggering forward 
to the front of the dock. For one-half minute 
he stood swaying backward and forward as if 
about to fall, and then he lifted a face, working 
and distorted with anguish, to the window which 
lighted the court from the roof, and throwing 
his arms upward, cried out in a voice to which 
it was terrible to listen : 


48 


A STRANGE SIN 


“ I appeal from earthly justice to divine ! 
Judge Thou between them and me, Q God, 
and suffer not the guilty to go unpunished ! ” 
And then he fell back, with the blood gush- 
ing from mouth and ears and nostrils — a dying 


man. 


Chapter VII. 


A STRANGE SIN. 

M any of those who had most cause to be- 
lieve in Mr. Armstrong’s innocence, 
seemed unable after his death to shake them- 
selves free from a certain superstitious dread 
concerning him, or to refrain from asking them- 
selves if all could be right with a man whom God 
had singled out for such an end ; and some did 
not hesitate to say that they saw in the circum- 
stances under which his death took place, the 
swift visitation of divine judgment. 

While by no means disposed to dispute the 
interposition of Providence — though the inter- 
pretation I put upon that interposition was a 
very different one — Mr. Armstrong’s death by 
the bursting of a blood vessel on the brain 
seemed to me in no wise strange or unnatural, 
in consideration of the intense emotional strain 


50 


A SmANGE SIN. 


under which he was labouring at the moment. 
All this, however, it can answer no purpose to 
discuss, but as the event which I have been de- 
scribing happened twenty years ago, and no 
one immediately concerned in the case is likely 
to suffer by the truth being made known, I give 
below part of a letter which I received from Mr. 
Armstrong on the day following his arrest. 

He began by solemnly charging me to make 
no attempt either to defend him or to obtain his 
release, and then went on as follows : 

“When I was quite a young man — excitable, 
emotional, and of a deeply religious tempera- 
ment — I was suddenly subjected to a terrible 
temptation to which, in a moment of unexpected 
weakness, I yielded. The thing was hardly 
done before I was overwhelmed with the most 
awful remorse — remorse which was the most 
agonizing from the fact that I was unable to 
satisfy my conscience by making reparation for 
the wrong I had done, or by confessing my guilt. 


A SmANGE SIN. 


51 


“ Reparation there could be none, for what 
had been done could never be undone, and the 
consolation of confession was equally denied 
me, for to have made known my sin would have 
brought misery and disgrace upon the innocent. 

“You may call me morbid, or even mad, if 
you will, but God is my witness that from that 
day to this I have never known a moment’s 
peace of mind. Life closed for me in the hour 
of the committal of the crime I have spoken of, 
and the thing which has borne my likeness is 
not myself but my phantom. 

“ I have stood aside and watched life’s dance 
of passion and joy go by, knowing that I was 
but a ghost, and had no part to play among 
living men and women. Dare I, who knew 
that I had no right to take the hand of an hon- 
est man in friendship, offer my love to any 
honourable woman ? If I could only have made 
confession of my crime, if I could only have 
stood forth for what I was before all, I might 
at last have proved my repentance, and have 


52 


A STRANGE SIN 


earned the right to my own, and to others’ re- 
spect. But confession and atonement were, 
for the reasons I have stated, alike denied me ; 
and from that day to this I have walked the 
world, conscious that I was a living, incarnate 
Lie — a thing which seemed white and fair be- 
fore men, but which knew itself to be one of 
the foulest and most loathsome creatures that 
defile God’s earth. 

“ Can you understand now why it was that 
I was always solitary, brooding and melancholy ? 
Can you wonder now why every thoughtless 
word of praise was to me — who knew myself 
for what I was, and who was seeking by the 
complete surrender and sacrifice of self to atone 
for the one irreparable wrong I had done — like 
the tearing away, by a rude hand, of the band- 
age from an unhealed wound ? I have got up 
in the night, after hearing such words of praise, 
and looked at my reflection in the glass, until I 
saw such loathing of myself expressed upon the 
uncanny ghost-face which loomed out at me 


A STRANGE SIN 


53 


from the silver twilight, that I could meet the 
look in those eyes no longer, but slunk and 
stole away with furtive, backward-cast glance, 
like a guilty thing surprised ; and I remember 
that once, in my hatred and abhorrence of my- 
self, I struck the grinning thing with my clenched 
fist, cutting my flesh to the bone and shivering 
the glass to atoms. 

“ At last I felt that I could bear the burden 
of my sin no more. To stand in the dock or 
on the scaffold, would be a very heaven in com- 
parison with the hell of knowing and loathing 
myself as a hypocrite, to which I was each day 
condemned ; and, at last, I decided to commit 
some crime — what, was of little matter so long 
as it served to brand me as foul and debased 
in the eyes of all, and so long, too, as no fellow 
creature suffered injury or debasement thereby. 

“ And so it was that I determined to commit, 
or to go through a form of committing (for the 
thing itself I had no feeling but loathing and 
abhorrence), the offence with which I am 


54 


A STRANGE SIN 


charged, and I planned it to take place at such 
a time, and under such circumstances, that de- 
tection and conviction were inevitable. 

“ The rest you know ; and you know now, 
too, why I have forbidden you to take any steps 
to defend me, or to explain away my crimes. 
To do so would be to rob me of the one thing 
for which I have longed as man never longed 
for woman, the starving for bread, or the dying 
for life. The cup of shame which I hold to my 
lips is sweeter to me than ever was sunlight to 
the prisoner in a dungeon ; for now at last, I 
know that I shall not step into eternity an 
incarnate Lie — now, at last, I can face God 
and man and my conscience again, for it is 
better to be branded and shunned as a crim- 
inal, than to walk God’s earth — the foulest 
of all foul things upon it — an unsuspected 
hypocrite ! ” 


A SUICIDE. 


“ Be not deceived : God is not mocked,” — G al. vi., 7. 

“ And thou shalt know that I am the Lord, and have heard all 
thy blasphemies.” — E2XKIAL 35, 12. 



A SUICIDE. 


Chapter I. 

London Bridge — How I came to be there — The letter, after re- 
ceiving which, I determine to take my life and end my misery — 
I set out from my lodgings — reach the bridge, and see, without being 
seen, and for the last time, the face of the woman who has broken my 
heart — the river, God and the man — The man defies and taunts his 
Maker, and with blasphemy upon his lips, leaps out into the night. 

I T was midnight when I reached the water, 
and over London Bridge two thin and 
straggling human streams, which flowed as rest- 
lessly on as the running of the river beneath 
the arches, poured incessantly in opposite direc- 
tions. I had very little recollection of how I 
came to be there. I remembered a time — was 
it possible it could have been only that morn- 
ing — when my life lay fair and bright before 
me ; but between that time and the time of 
which I am speaking, there yawned an impassa- 


67 


58 


A SUICIDE. 


ble gulf, and I seemed to have lived centuries 
since the blow had fallen. 

It was in the morning, and while I was sitting 
at breakfast, that the news which wrecked my 
life had reached me, and evening found me ly- 
ing humped in the same chair, with head on 
breast, and hollow, haggard eyes a-stare, and 
the letter, which told me that the woman I loved 
had betrayed and deceived me, still fluttering 
in the fingers of the nerveless hand that dropped 
over the chair-back. I was as one paralyzed. 
My brain had stopped just as a drowning man’s 
watch stops, on coming in contact with the 
water — at the moment when I had received the 
blow. As the hands of the watch of the man 
who has met his death by drowning indicate 
only the time when to him time ceased to be, 
so on the dial of my consciousness there was 
recorded but one fateful fact ; and into one 
fierce focal point of light — the realization of my 
misery — all the thoughts which passed through 
the burning glass of my brain were concentrated. 


A SUICIDE. 


59 


Suddenly I started convulsively, catching my 
breath and clenching my hand, until the letter 
which lay in it was crushed to a ball ; for, like 
the dart of a serpent’s tongue upon a sleeping 
bird, the thought that I had it in my power to 
end my misery darted through my deadened 
brain. 

Just as I had been previously dominated by 
the one thought of my wretchedness, so now, I 
was alone possessed by the one thought of sui- 
cide. All the slumbering hounds of conscious- 
ness gave tongue at that thought, and swept on 
at full cry in wild pursuit ; and that thought I 
set before me, as the runner sets the mark 
towards which to press. 

Self-interest, Expediency and Religion sprang 
up clamoring, and, knocking at the door of my 
brain, cried out, “What will it profit thee, if 
thou doest this thing ? Knowest thou not that 
punishment will await thee hereafter?” but 
them I let knock at an unopened door ; and 
when Conscience arose, and, placing herself in 


60 


A SUICIDE. 


my pathway, strove with despairing hands to 
drag me back, I would not as much as let my 
eyes rest upon her, but, turning from her, cried 
out, “ This thing I will do, and must ! ” 

How or when I left my lodgings, I have no 
knowledge ; but my next recollection is that of 
finding myself in the street. Stooping and 
slouched, with head on breast and burning 
eyes, and choosing always the darkest street 
and crossing, I slunk doggedly on, shrinking 
from, and yet scarcely heeding the passers, un- 
til at last I reached the bridge, and, with shoul- 
der hunched to the wall, dragged myself slowly 
along to the first recess, and paused to peer 
over the parapet upon the water. 

Westward the Cannon Street viaduct barred 
the view of the river, and through the cold 
shine of the electric lights, the gas lamps on 
the distant embankment burned yellow and 
dim. A train, laboring like a blown runner, 
puffed panting over the bridge. For one sec- 
ond the electric light flickered from glare to 


A SUICIDE. 


61 


gloom, and then flared out into a dazzling, 
purplish-pink, which lit every carriage with such 
startling distinctness that the features of the 
passengers were plainly visible. A face looked 
out across the water into mine, and I saw that 
it was the face of the woman who had broken 
my heart, and for love of whom I was there to 
take my life. Forgetful of the fact that the 
blaze of light by which she was surrounded 
would effectually blind her to all that lay out- 
side ; forgetful of my wrongs, and of the ruin 
she had brought to me, and of everything ex- 
cept my wretchedness and the immeasurable 
love I bore her, I stretched out my arms with 
an eager and passionate cry ; but even as I did 
so, she smiled and turned to speak to a com- 
panion in the compartment, and in another 
moment the train passed on, and was lost un- 
der the huge half-cylinder which roofs the sta- 
tion, leaving me alone upon the dark bridge, 
and in the night — as alone as I had been before 
she had come into my life, as alone as I should 


62 


A SUICIDE. 


be in the death which I was there to seek. 
Alone we live; alone we suffer and die, and 
sympathy can avail us as little as hate. Your 
sympathy is powerless to avert one pang of the 
pain which tears me, for sympathy is but the 
stretching of hands across an impassable gulf 
Even love resembles less the blending of 
clouds upon the blue, than the sad vigil of 
neighboring stars. We are companions one to 
another, we are affected by the nearness or 
distance of the loved one, but never, ah ! never 
do we touch. 

Sick in soul and faint in body, (for I had had 
no food since the morning), I turned and crossed 
to the eastward side of the bridge. Below me, 
in naked majesty, and with blear lights on the 
right hand and on the left, like death candles 
ranged by an Ethiop’s corpse, brooded the 
black mystery of the river. As I looked down 
upon its waters — here flowing with snaky and 
treacherous swiftness under a surface as smooth 
as glass ; there foaming in ediy and swirl, or 


A SUICIDE. 


63 


sliding as sullenly on as molten pitch, and 
barred by the broken reflection of lights on 
steamer and barge, my excited fancy seemed to 
see the mouth of hell lying before me. I had 
always thought of hell as a place far distant ; 
but now I localized it immediately beneath the 
water, and believed that I had but to plunge to 
the other side of those inky waves to find hell 
and all its horrors awaiting me — horrors, which 
I was, of my own free will, and not by the de- 
cree of God or devil about to seek. I hugged 
myself with a hideous pride as I thought of it. 
Yes, the life, which men murder and lie to pro- 
long, which they sell their souls to save, I was 
about to fling unvalued from me. The hell, to 
escape from which they shuffle and whimper 
and cringe, and portion out their days in petty 
rounds of fasting, church-going and prayer, this 
hell, I was, of my own accord about to seek. 

“ Do Thy worst, O God ! ” I shrieked. 
“Thou mayest be cruel, but Thou canst not be 
more cruel than I can be to myself I fear not 


64 


A SUICIDE, 


the death with which Thou terrifyest us here, the 
hell with which thou threatenest us hereafter ; 
and wert Thou, Thyself, to open for me the 
gates of heaven, I would spurn Thy offer, and 
fling myself of my own will into hell. Of my 
own choice I came not into the world, but of 
my own choice I can and will leave it ; and 
Thou, O God, the Omnipotent, art powerless to 
prevent me ! Behold, the thing which Thou 
madest mocks Thee and defies Thee ! Thou 
gavest me life, O God, and thus do I fling Thy 
vile gift back! ” 

With a cry like the cry of a wild beast, I 
sprang at a bound upon the parapet. For one 
moment I tottered, swaying betwixt river and 
sky — above me the wan, white face of a swoon- 
ing moon, below me the dark mystery of the 
river, — and then with impious hands upthrust to 
the silent heaven, and with a shriek of blas- 
phemy upon my lips, I sprang out, far out, into 
the night. 


Chapter II. 


In. the water-»-A las*^ struggle for life — A drowning man’s dreams — 
I am a child again — A youth — The travail of a soul — I face my doubts, 
and declaring for atheism, bum my Bible — The last of the pictures of 
the past — The final sensations of drowning, and the dreamy swooning 
into death. 

I REMEMBER that a momentary contraction 
of the stomach and a sense of sickness 
followed the leap. I can recall the hissing of 
hot blood in my ears, the cold rush, as of a 
mighty wind, but have no recollection of strik- 
ing the water. 

Then there came a sudden and deadly shock 
of all-enveloping cold, which sent such torture 
of cramp to every muscle, that my limbs were 
drawn up distortedly to my body ; and in the 
next moment I was battling and beating for 
breath, fighting for life, and clutching at the un- 
substantial water in such frenzy of fear, that it 
was churned, as it closed over my head, into 


65 


66 


A SUICIDE, 


crackling bubbles of foam. Blood and fire were 
in my ears and mouth and nostrils. My eyes 
were balls of flame, which lit up the cup of my 
brain, and I saw red blood whirling round and 
round in it, as water whirls in a whirlpool. 

But slowly and surely, and with paralyzing 
numbness, the cold stole through body and 
limb. My struggles became less and less 
fierce, and the fires flickered and went out. 
From my brain the blood had cleared, and it 
was now an empty chamber, into which I looked, 
as one looks into a room through a window : 
and I saw pictures come and go upon the walls. 

Ht * * * * * * ^ 

A motherless, brotherless, sisterless child sat 
alone in a little dark garret, so near the roof 
that he could hear the rain-drops pattering upon 
the tiles. The side walls of the garret slanted 
upward and inward from the floor, so that there 
was scarcely room to stand upright, except 
where they met in a point overhead ; and the 
little leaden-paned window by which he sat. 


A SUICIDE, 


67 


with his head upon his hands and his elbows 
upon the sill, was set so far back into the room, 
that his view was limited to the sky and the 
upper windows of an opposite house. But it 
was a warm, wet, summer Sunday evening, and 
one of these windows, from which there floated 
the words of an evening hymn, was open, and 
he could see a group of happy-faced children 
gathered around an old piano, in a small and 
shabby but homelike room. As he looked at 
the uplifted, worshipping face of the young 
mother, and watched her white fingers wander- 
ing reverently among the keys, he saw her 
turn with a loving smile to slip an arm around 
a little pinafored, pink-cheeked fellow of his own 
age at her side ; and then the picture faded out 
and was succeeded by another. 

:!< jK * * ^ * * H: * 

A heavy-mouthed, dark-eyed lad, sallow of 
complexion, and with straight, stiff hair, thick- 
massed and growing low down over scowling 
brows, sat with his feet upon the fender and his 


68 


A SUICIDE, 


elbows on his knees, looking sullenly and fix- 
edly at the fire which burned in the grate of a 
dingy parlor. His chin was rested upon the 
cup of his right hand, his fingers being hooked 
till the tips touched the teeth ; and as he sat, 
he bit steadily, almost viciously, at his nails. 
His left hand was buried in the shaggy hair that 
was bushed over his ears, and on a chair by his 
side lay an open Bible. Some strange emotion 
stirred within him. His nostrils dilated and 
quivered, and in his eyes there was a dull and 
lurid glow, like the reflection of subterranean 
fires upon the belly of clouds that hang over 
the mouth of a volcano. Suddenly he flung 
himself, rather than rose, to his feet, and began 
to pace restlessly to and fro, talking aloud to 
himself as he did so. 

“It is to the abject fear of death, the fear 
which makes us crave for something super- 
human to cling to, when the human can avail 
us no more,” he said, “that the world owes its 
conception of a God. We are cowards who 


A SUICIDE. 


69 


would rather lull our fears to rest with a lie, 
than face the inevitable facts. All the religions 
of the world are rivers that rise from one self- 
ish source ; and were there no death, God 
would be but a subject for the curious specula- 
tion of the philosopher, and the majority of men 
would concern themselves as little about Him 
as they do about the plurality of worlds. But 
death is, and must be faced ; and so we try to 
bolster up our failing courage, by dogmatizing 
about a Divine Being, who will do and be for 
us, what we cannot do and be for ourselves. 
And we are not even honest in our thoughts 
about the Deity we fable. Events are daily 
happening which cannot be reconciled with our 
theory of an Omnipotent and Benevolent Ruler ; 
but rather than make use of our reason and 
think for ourselves, we profess a blind faith in the 
divine justice, and declare that what is, must be 
right, because it is of God’s ordaining. Just as 
the Roman Catholic seeks to evade his respon- 
sibilities, by accepting, in the place of his abdi- 


70 


A SUICIDE. 


cated reason, an infallible church, which thinks, 
prays, believes, atones for, and absolves him, 
so we try to evade the questions which confront 
us, by referring them back to that dead-letter 
office — the will of an Almighty Creator — to 
which we relegate all the disquieting problems 
and undelivered mental packets, for which we 
cannot find a place in the sorting-box of our 
reason. Our minds are like so many oysters, 
each of which is perpetually perplexed with an 
unanswerable problem in place of a grain of 
sand ; and we cannot get rid of the gritty cause 
of our uneasiness, we cover it over with a coat- 
ing of fine words, and call it our conception of 
a God. 

“ I look down at this marvellous body of mine 
— these fingers which open and shut at my bid- 
ding, these limbs which so anticipate my wish, 
that they act in accordance with it, before I am 
aware of having put my will into action ; and I 
look in at the mystery of this strangely self- 
conscious shade — this ‘myself’ as I call it — 


A SUICIDE. 


71 


which from behind the window curtains of a lit- 
tle chamber, at the back of my eyes, looks out, 
unseen, uy.m the world, and I ask myself who 
I am and where I came from ; and when I can- 
not find an answer to my question, I put it away 
from me unanswered, by falling back upon the 
figment of a Divine Creator, knowing all the 
time that to account for the unaccountable by 
presupposing the existence of an Infinite and 
Omnipotent Being, brooding in lonely grandeur 
athwart the waste spaces of eternity, or hover- 
ing, bird-like, over the world, as over a nest, 
and with outstretched wings that span the uni- 
verse, is but attempting to dispose of one 
mystery by hiding it in the shadow of another 
a thousand-fold more unfathomable ; is but 
seeking to set the mind at rest by asking it to 
believe something which is monstrously incredi- 
ble. Why should there be a Supreme Being ? 
Who gave God the right to be God ? And is 
there any justice in one All-greedy, All-grasping 
Power, arrogating omnipotence to himself? ” 


72 


A SUICIDE. 


He stooped, and taking the open Bible from 
the chair, flung it face downward upon the fire ; 
and as he did so, the picture faded out and was 
succeeded by another. 

It was early summer, and two lovers were 
following a path through a meadow thick-sown 
with tender corn, over which, as the wind swept 
the tremulous sheen of the emerald banner- 
blades to shivering silver, there rose and sank 
a soft and willowy stirring, which was like the 
sigh of a soul passing out on its way to God. 
The face of the man was the face of the lonely 
child and of the lonely lad ; and the face of the 
woman was the face which had looked out at 
me that evening across the river. And at the 
sight of that face, the last of the pictures faded 
away, and I was back in my room again, and 
reading the fatal letter — 1 was slinking doggedly 
on by street and crossing, with brain on fire, 
and all my thoughts bent on ending my misery — 
I stood upon the bridge with hell and hatred to 


A SUICIDE. 


73 


God in my heart — and I was battling and beat- 
ing for breath, fighting for life, and clutching at 
the unsubstantial water in my drowning agony. 
And then it seemed to me that I had drifted out 
into the open sea, and lay buried beneath such 
a weight of waters that I was able to stir neither 
hand nor foot. I could see, through a softened 
and subdued haze of greenish light which swam 
around me, the little hollows and hills among 
the shingle and shells, the banks of white and 
shelving sand ; and overhead, like a sheet of 
ice or silvered glass, the under side of the sur- 
face of the sea. Bubbles floated upward from 
my mouth, and coated this under side with shin- 
ing pearls. Here and there the water-atmos- 
phere of my submarine world was shot with 
silvery streaks and spears of refracted light . 
and I could see filaments of seaweed combed 
out in long ribbons upon the water, and floating 
and fluttering above me like emerald pennons 
streaming in a breeze. 


74 


A SUICIDE. 


After a time the weight upon my breast 
lightened, and finally passed away into a dreamy 
peace. I closed my eyes, and a delicious drowsi- 
ness stole over brain and limb. My body 
swayed in unison with a gentle undulation in 
the water, as though the kindly sea had stooped 
to clasp her strong arms around me, and to 
rock me to sleep upon her breast. There was 
the singing as of a sweet slumber song in my 
ears. One by one the record of the years faded 
out from my brain. I was a lad — a child- — a 
babe. My cheek nestled against a warm, soft- 
pulsing bosom ; my brow was light-brushed by 
a waving ringlet, as lips, which whispered a 
prayer that God would keep me innocent and 
pure, were pressed upon mine. For one 
moment I opened my eyes to look up into the 
beautiful face, and into the love-filled and lumi- 
nous eyes of the young mother whom I had 
never seen ; and then, with one deep sigh of 
infinite content, I closed my eyes and fell into 
a dreamless slumber. 


Chapter III. 


My awakening — The punishment of the Suicide — My promise. 

S LOWLY but surely, thought and sensation 
came back to me, and I awoke, with a 
nameless horror at my heart, to find myself ly- 
ing on my back, and staring up fixedly at the 
ceiling of my own room — the room in which I 
had received and read the letter, and which, 
when I set out to take my life, I never expected 
again to see. I strove to raise myself to a sit- 
ting posture ; but though my brain was clear 
and active, I seemed to have lost all control 
over my limbs. Next I tried to turn my eye- 
balls in their sockets that I might look around 
me ; but I found that they were stiff and set, 
and that I had as little control over them as 
over my body. And then a great cry of shud- 
dering and unutterable horror welled up in my 
heart ; but my drawn lips gave no utterance to 
r 


76 


A SUICIDE. 


it, for I was lying dead in my coffin, and the 
footsteps of those who came to bear me to the 
grave might, even then, be upon the stair. 

For this is the judgment which awaits the 
siiicide : that, though he kill the corporeal 
life, he cannot disenta^igle the dead body from 
the living spirit, but must lie there a conscious 
corpse, aware of the coming interment and de- 
composition, which he is powerless to hhider or 
to avert. 

The will of God o^wcmot by mortal cunning be 
evaded. The Creator may not by His creature 
be outwitted and defied ; for our life, as well as 
the length of it, is of God’s and not of our or- 
daining, and can be terminated, not by any act 

of ours, but only by His decree. 

********;}{ 

At last the time came when I knew, by the 
rattling of the earth upon the lid, that the coffin 
was being lowered into the grave. I remember 
that then, when it was too late, God or the 
devil mocked me by restoring to me some 


A SUICIDE, 


77 


measure of power over my limbs, and that I 
clenched my hands, until the dry nails peeled 
off like wound-scabs, and the flesh fell away in 
flakes from the bone. 

“Kill me, O God !” I shrieked. “Kill me, 
O God or Devil ! and I who curse thee now, will 
bless thee and worship Thee — Thee, God, or 
thee. Devil, if thou wilt but promise to kill 
me, and to cast me out into everlasting night ! ” 

Like the rattling of teeth in a skull, my 
voice rattled from the hollow sides of the coffln, 
and died away, unechoed, amid the walls of 
dead and oozy clay which closed me in ; but 
neither Hell nor Heaven gave answer to my 
prayer. Though there was scarcely room to 
turn or to move in the coffln, I managed, by 
one supreme and frenzied effort, to double my 
straightened arms with the fists under my chin 
and the elbows outward ; and then, with the 
superhuman strength of a madman, I strained 
against the boards which shut me in. The 
strings of my eyeballs cracked, but the oaken 


78 


A SUICIDE, 


walls gave slightly, and as, once more, I 
wrenched my arms apart and against the sides, 
there was a sound of breaking timber, and— - 
my God ! was it possible ? Light ! — Light ! 
and the light of day ! 

I was in a room ; it looked like a hospital, 
and I heard the sound of a voice : 

“ He’s had a hard time of it, doctor, but I 
think he’s coming round at last. Don’t hand 
him over to the police, poor devil ! No one 
can swear it was suicide but me, and hang me 
if I’ll appear against him ! ” 

“ It’s a risky thing you’re doing, my boy — 
condoning an offence of that sort,” was the an- 
swer, “but if he promises never to attempt 
anything of the kind again, I’m willing to keep 
the secret.” 

And I promised. 


THE GARDEN OF GOD. 


(A STORY FOR CHILDREN FROM EIGHT TO EIGHTY.) 


/ 






I 



1 I '^r' X*‘ .' ’ 


\ 


r — 




> - 


,v^:-- 

^ -V_- 

w 


9 > , 

— - ■• l: ■•.>■» 




»• * 

fck •» 


# 


. .-'Vs ■' ■ 1 - : • - . . - 

Ip^^^>.; i'- /r V ' . V- , *^‘ -- ..-> ■; 


A 


\ 


. • 

« r 


't 



'\ 





-S 


•'/ 


.• < 


i ^ 


r''. 


*■ 


^ f. '*, 


» \ - •# 


' « k 


.Vm' A^;'- 


« 


.A 





vfln - <• *. . >' 11 ,.., 

,v> ^} . - 

V ’ ■ • 


<.'V 




C . ' 
• , - 
»* 


p 

> L< 


0 

r 




'"v. ' 


•• * • 

w • 

« « 

► 


. ,11*- 




• , \ 


■ - - w r 

^ • ' • .V; V ' *. . . 


> I 


t 




J 



<■ 


» •> 


.» 


-. • “*7 - 




* 




\ 

• • ■/ 

t. 


4^^ 




» * 




• • 

» -i' 






I** 


I. • 



- * 


^ *4 ■ 

-» i» 



1 




: -x. ^ - 
1 


f*J 9 * ■, / 

-r 

. 1^ • 


•* 

't 

- «• 


-1 


>5.-^ 


•’ /* ' 




%, •»■«*• 'T.. »■ -'• •ijr ”-^T^ ’ 


> * >. li' ^ 


'"^<X .1 • .,'••. 




r ‘ 


^ •* 


;'/:-S 

'U' 





f ^ 


4, \ 


S?rW.'- .;> ■" 

|^;xV - ■ - ' ^^-■■ 


f '• • 




-. - - 

^^V':,- - • 

5 vv 


' ^ • V . i4f^' 
- - . .. ^ ^ 


*• - 


T- ^ w ^ ^ ‘ ' 4 

J • '■■ •■ V • *" - v-» 

Pi . K,' \ - y.,. ■ . • . • 



^ # ?? ^vc '** ' 'r * * 

'4. • 4 .\ r . V ►,••■- - - 

^ ^ 

-k M * . » • 


• * 


^.. >.... 


j • 

/ •'■ • ■ >■ 


«. -v 


^ ' 


.. Vf*,. 


«• «* ^ 


fj. 




. ■> ^ 


inSKfcn. > '.; ' ' • 


fc 


^ ^ ^ ' '- V'"'^ - * -■'^ - 

i t- ^ ^ 

-r-- ••ri - l *' *,•''* 



THE GARDEN OF GOD. 


Chapter I. 

I T was broad noonday in the garden, and so 
hot that one could see the air palpitating 
and quivering above the gravel paths in undul- 
ant haze of heat. Even the butterfly gasped 
for breath, and grumbled because the swaying 
of the grasses set stirring a warm puff, which 
was like the opening of an oven. The sun 
seemed so near, and was trying so hard to be 
hot, that the daisies said they could see him 
spinning and panting as he stood above them ; 
but that, I think, was only their fancy, although 
it is true that he was shining so exactly over- 
head, that there was not a streak of shadow 
where one could creep from shelter from the 
sweltering heat. All the flowers were parched 
and drooping, and except for the passing buzz 
where a bee went drowsily by, or buried him- 


81 


82 


THE GARDEN OF GOD, 


self with a contented burr in the heart of a 
pansy, not a sound stirred the sultry silence. 

All at once there was a sudden scurry among 
the birds. A cat which had been basking and 
purring in the sunshine, opening and shutting 
an eye every now and then to make believe 
that she was not sleepy, had dropped off into a 
doze, and now yawned and awakened ; and this 
was the signal for a general stir. 

“ Phew ! but it is hot, to be sure ! ” ex- 
claimed the butterfly, as he darted up for a 
stretch from the poppy-head on which he had 
been sitting, and went waltzing, anglewise, 
down the gravelled path of the garden, lacing 
the long, green lines of the boxwood bordering 
with loops of crimson and gold. 

“ I hope my weight won’t inconvenience you,” 
he said with airy politeness to the lily, dropping 
himself lazily, and without waiting for an an- 
swer, upon her delicate head, which drooped so 
feebly beneath this new burden that several 
scented petals fluttered fainting to the ground ; 


THE GARDEN OF GOD. 


83 


“ I am grieved to see you looking so sadly,” he 
continued, after he had settled himself to his 
liking ; “ but what on • earth, my good soul, 
makes you lean forward in that uncomfortable 
attitude ? There is a charmingly shady spot 
under the shelter of the wall behind you. Why 
don’t you lean in that direction ? As it is, you 
are going out of your way to make yourself 
uncomfortable, besides which I should very 
much prefer to be out of the heat.” 

‘T should be glad to move into the shade,” 
said the lily gently,” but my sweetheart, the 
rose, has fallen asleep by the border, and I am 
leaning over her to keep the sun from her 
buds.” 

“ How very charming you are ! ” lisped the 
butterfly languidly, and in a tone of polite con- 
tempt which seemed to imply, “ and what a 
fool ! ” “ But your ideas are a little crude, 

don’t you know ? though of course interesting. 
It is easy to see you are not a person of the 
world. When you have travelled about, and 


84 


THE GARDEN OF GOD. 


learnt as much as I have, you will come to look 
at such things in a different way.” 

“Yes, you have travelled, and lived in the 
world, and seen a great deal,” said the lily ; • 
“but I have loved ; and it is by loving, as well 
as by living, that one learns.” 

“ Don’t presume to lecture me ! ” was the 
impatient answer. “ Fancy a flower finding 
fault with a butterfly ! Don’t you know that I 
am your superior in the scale of being ! But, 
tell me, does this love of which you speak 
bring happiness ? ” 

“The greatest of all happiness,” whispered 
the lily almost to herself, and with infinite ten- 
derness — her white bells seeming to light up 
and overflow, like human eyes, as she spoke. 

To love truly, and to be loved, is indeed to 
be favoured of heaven. All the good things 
which this world contains are not worthy to be 
offered in exchange for the love of one faithful 
heart.” 


THE GARDEN OF GOD. 


85 


“ Then I must learn to love,” said the butter- 
fly decisively, “ for happiness has always been 
my aim. Tell me how to begin.” 

“ You ll \\2iWQ to begin by /^learning,” put 
in a big double-dahlia, which was standing by 
like a sentinel, and looking as stiff and stuck- 
up as if he had just been appointed flower- 
policeman to the garden. 

“ Don’t you be afraid that any one’s going to 
fall in love with you,” was the spiteful rejoinder 
of the butterfly, edging himself round and 
round on a lily-bell as he spoke. “ Your place 
is in the vegetable garden, along with the cauli- 
flowers and the artichokes. There is some- 
thing distinguished about a white chrysanthe- 
mum, and the single-dahlias are shapely, al- 
though they do stare so ; but the double- 
dahlias ! ” — and the butterfly affected a pretty 
shudder of horror which made the double- 
dahlia stiffen on his stem with rage. 

“ How dare you speak slightingly of my 
family!” he said indignantly. “And as for 


86 


THE GARDEN OF GOD. 


those big chrysanthemums ! why they’re just 
like tumbled heaps of worsted, or that shaggy- 
eyed skye-tefrier dog that we see sometimes in 
the garden — untidy, shapeless, lumpy things I 
call them ! ” 

The butterfly, who had been alternately 
opening and shutting his wings, as if he thought 
the sight of such splendour was too dazzling to 
be borne continuously, but really because he 
knew that the sombre tinting which they dis- 
played when closed, heightened, by contrast, 
their gorgeous colouring when open, was 
nothing if not well-bred, so he simply pre- 
tended to stifle a yawn in the dahlia’s face, 
and to make believe that he had not heard what 
was said. 

“After all,” he said, turning his back point- 
edly upon the dahlia, and shutting up his wings 
with a final snap — just as a fine lady closes a 
fan — “after all, my dear lily, I don’t know 
whether it’s worth my while to learn to love ; 
for, by this time next year, you and I will be 


THE GARDEN OF GOD. 


87 


dead, and it will be all the same then to us as 
if we had never loved, or even lived at all.” 

“I know nothing about death,” replied the 
lily, “but no one who loves can doubt immor- 
tality, and if 'the rose and I are not already im- 
mortal, I believe that our love will make us so.” 

“ What is this immortality? ” said the butter- 
fly. “ I have heard the word used a great deal 
in my wanderings, but I never quite knew the 
meaning of it” 

“ It is the finding again after death of those 
we have loved and lost ; and the loving and 
living with them forever, I think,” answered his 
companion. 

“ I don’t believe you know anything about 
it,” said the butterfly, decisively. “ All the 
men and women I’ve met — and they ought to 
know — used ever so much longer words.” 

“Perhaps you are right,” replied the lily 
quietly, bending forward to shield a stray rose- 
bud from the burning sun, but to be forever 
with those I love would be immortality enough 


88 


THE GARDEN OF GOD. 


for me. And I heard the maiden who walks in 
the garden, speaking yesterday, and I remem- 
ber that she said it was more godlike to love 
one little child purely and unselfishly than to 
have a heart filled with a thousand vast vague 
aspirations after things we can neither know 
nor understand.” 


Chapter II. 


H OW strangely still it was in the garden ! 

Summer had gone, and October was 
nearly over, but the day had been so bright and 
warm that every one said the winter must be a 
very long way off. But since the sun went 
down, the air had been getting more and more 
chilly, and the stars were glittering like cold 
steel, and the moon looked so bright and large, 
that the flowers, which had awakened with an 
icy pain at their hearts, could scarcely believe 
that it was night and not day, for every tiny 
grass-blade and buttercup stood out with start- 
ling distinctness on the grass. A strange, 
sharp scent was in the air, and a singular still- 
ness was abroad. 

There was no “going” in the trees, nor 
bough-swing among the branches, but all stood 
rigid and motionless as if intently listening. 


90 


THE GARDEN OF GOD. 


“ Perhaps they are listening for the first foot- 
fall of the winter — the winter which is coming to 
kill us,” said the lily sadly, bending down, as 
she spoke, to twine herself protectingly around 
the rose. 

“Perhaps we are dead already,” said the 
rose, with a shudder, “ and are but ghost-flowers 
in a ghostly garden. How cold and wan my 
rosy petals look in this pallid light ! And is 
this grey place — blanched and silent and still as 
death — our sweet-scented and sunny garden, 
that glowed with warm colour and was astir with 
life?” 

Just then, and before the lily could answer, 
they heard a sudden cry of pain. 

It was the butterfly who had fallen, half dead 
with cold, from a sycamore bough, and now lay 
shelterless and shivering on the frozen path. 
“ Creep up upon my leaves, dear butterfly,” 
said the lily, tenderly, as she bent towards him, 
“and I will try and find a warm place for you 
near my heart.” 


THE GARDEN OF GOD, 


91 


“ Oh, I’m so frightened ! Fm so frightened ! ” 
he sobbed. “ The world is dying ; even now 
the trees seem still and dead. Soon the stars 
will fall out of the sky into the garden. Shall 
we be left in darkness when the moon goes 
out ? Already her face is deadly pale, although 
she shines so brightly. And what has come to 
the trees ? On every bough there sparkle a 
thousand lights. Are they stars which have 
dropped from the sky? ” 

“They are not stars at all,” said the lily, 
bending over him and hushing him to her heart 
as a mother hushes a frightened child, “ but 
diamonds lor the Frost King’s crown. I think 
we shall die to-night. Are you asleep, dear 
rose ? The end is coming ; at least let us meet 
it waking, and in eachr other’s arms.” 

“ It is coming, dear heart, and coming soon,” 
said the rose with a cry. “ Already I can scarce 
speak for pain. The night grows ever colder 
and more cold. And how strangely bright the 
moon is ! What was that streak of silver across 


92 


THE GARDEN OF GOD, 


the sky? A star which has fallen from its 
place ? ” 

“ I think ’twas the shining angel God sends 
to fetch us,” answered the lily. “ Dear Love, 
the end will soon be here. Already the pain 
has reached my heart ; already I begin to die.” 

“ And I, too,” said the rose. “I sink — I faint 
— the sharp pain stings and bites ! Hold me 
fast, darling ! I scarce can see you now.” 

“Nor I you, sweetheart ! ” 

“ Hold me closer — closer. Everything seems 
to fall away.” 

“ Everything but love, dearest, and where 
love is, all is. At least we shall die together.” 

Icier and more icy grew the air ; brighter and 
whiter shone the moonlight on the garden, 
until the sunflowers’ shadow lay like ebony 
upon silver along the grass ; colder and more 
steely glittered the stars through the limpid 
atmosphere ; and closer crept the pain to the 
heart of the dying flowers. And all the long 
night through the silent trees stood rigid and 


THE GARDEN OF GOD, 


93 


motionless, but now they listened no longer, for 
winter was come indeed, and on every branch 
the frost-crystals glinted and sparkled. 

And whe7i morning dawned the butterfly lay 
dead forever, but the lily and the rose were the 
fairest flowers a-bloom in the Garden of God. 




V 


" .. V . 


X ' . •> ’Y^, . ^ 


t f' 




* 

•» 


•. • >?*- 



% 


^ * 

f X . 


^ >-• . ■ -* j» • ,- • • ' ’>. • ‘jfit '■ 

■• * it ^ ‘ ', --v;^ ' • . /' . -. <. i;>34l 

AJ' ^ ^ ■' ^ ^ 1l' ^‘ _. ^ m^- " ^ • ' J_ ^ N^' « » • * • •* ml ^ fa * 

JTv J., .Vr i • ‘ •" ! -?^r '■ '^' • ' -> ■ ■; ' ' 

\Lv-/ .5^ '., - • .- • -■ 'j^. • V ' .: ,-'--'"Yi ' 

'' ‘^.Ti’-' V- • '■ ■■ ' * ■' j ' • •*- . ^ ' t:'- - "~'~* -■ ■ ' i^jS; ' .illK 

• • ^ . J 7 T^.. • a . . --.a' '• • - a i - ■ - '* • ••• -• - . ^ «' 


' '5 * ' ‘ 4 * - •■^ • - ^ w ^ % ■ ■ * ^ - ' <• /' 




- • - -a.. « -** 


f ^ 


* K 


• _ 

■\ ^ -V-^\ 


f •-'- 

■'•M?'-' 'r*^' -f- ' -' ■- ■' 



? 5 ^.' 


y. 

j 


> - • . ’?* 



U 2 ' ' * '• 


- V ‘ V* ' ' ' • V 

. . • , . .- . • — • ■ 
ri-*- ' y . . ...,-. If. 

■ c.’ .• i - ■* > ‘ 


>?'-■ 

„ • . I « 

'A 




' 5 ^ . ^ ft* - >■' . ' . ■ •_ 




tM ‘■-* ’ '*!“■, ^ "*■ 

- : '- '.j 



N . 


u'*’ 


V t. 




• •l 


[ ’jV 1* ■ . ■ ' • .• iriy' I 

» . - , i J . --• ' r . » 1 % 

y_ * -*« «' 



> ■ ^ 5 '- ■ . ' ' 




• r 

S' 


*• A '»•- , , 


h^ZiL- • *i 

_w'‘“ 

u^', ' ■- -c,%:"-^;-v;. '■- i:.‘ 

h flS-^: ,S.$. V ■ v >, 3' - 

-r- ■*'■ • ■* >■• ■• ■. ,. 'J i sJ ^ 

j:' Y; "’ '^i’-'.-sr-.^* i"'V'^''',!^'*^'' 

. .'^-x' 1 »* ' ^ * * ' -PL ** ^ ** -_■■ ■fT'^t '* 'rv’ 



< « V 





THE APPLES OF SIN. 


“ A strange punishment to the workers of iniquity.” — J ob xxxi., 3 


Iff rJ V , ‘ ^ / •' , ‘< >0 -.f , T ^ -. w .V *.2H ;.i 

- ;•■•'' ::-v" ■. ■-. 'v ■ ' '.^ 






•-T 


r • 


>• 




'r. 


< ^- 

•/ 


\ •C'^ •*( 

*' !•« ! 


r. 


« ^ 


. 't 


pi 5 f/^'\ f • \ * ^ < 


-• .' '■ ■.*,»• *■ 

:'^ -;-»T :.- V 

f' ‘ A 


»■ 


.t' , , » 


<♦. • 

V'l 


J - '- 


• - • * 


•V 

^ * • 


^. -fc ■ . 


-t 


< 


f •: 


I.* 


H 

• 23 « ’ s x 

• ft 


M ^ • T • •» 


- t 


- -: ; 





J- 


.\ 


» r 


•»c 





>■ 




- » 




r ^ 


4 

4 




f • 


•' 


■•- { 


7^,^. ^>:.^,;;->».-v:.t^ - - 

\ ^ v:- ■■ r*Wt •:** 


.:y 


’ V!.'" 


t ^ 

O 




;/ 


• . *; , • - • -. . 

'v _x 

N jLiT 

r • 

-» J ^ . 


!^*r ,' 

' J ^4 " ^ ' 


h 




. ?<■■ 


» 


• ^ 


y-f V • 

f . 




- , 'v - . - - 


V ' 






%p ■ - » 


I 

« • 


•v^. '--'- ■ .- 

'T . - ^ - 

;^v .' hi. 


V ^ r * 


;-a 

A* 


-v' 


< 

^ . A 


.t 


c - 


/• • *. >.*>■• 




.f 


I* r- 


• • 1 :- • 
rr •■■ • • 
J .^. 


• I 





/» 

,V/ 

« 


V,- 


.V /^' . 



t 


t 

I * 




/ 

» 

.« * * 


^ • 


A 4 


■ ' i 


* ^ 4 ^ 


• ^ 


is *, 
t " 


♦ - 


. « 

4^ . 


w» 

♦ > « 


•r 


• ff 


*»• 





v\ 




t:T i - - 


- P 


^ m 




• » 

\ . ' 




S> - 








• * 





*v ^ 

" -'^■■V'\. 




i 




* 

*• 


•*1 ^ 


c- 

. ^ 


^ S' 


. V 



• ^ 


■s- 


% • » 4 ; V -■* • 


V ■> - 


f y 




- w ( -. •• 


I >. 


4» ; 

' * 


-.y-'iijfo-. . j 


•' * • 




/ ‘ 


. 





,■ 


sfo?:* ■ ^ 





\' 


r . 

i 

X •'. • 


> ^ 



»> / • 


Y 


'r'- •' ' 


X 

c 


. 4. 




-V •- ^;.* ' ^ ■< 





• < 


» ■ 




Vi •^.V ' •. »«,! ■ 'l*uUi. ., ■ , ^ ■. - - >.• 

?;■ \.ft^ "> ; ^ '• < ^ * ■'' .- . '.•' \ii 

• • •%'/ ' . . • ' \ 4 -' - ' 

^ “ ' V"vr -. " ■■ “ ' ’• ‘ 

£iL . •. .7 v. •. . 7-^i. 


• . . ^-. ' 4 ; ;./»* • ' i) -xv^r;7. 

' X,. W.:ir..t5:J ; 

* . ^ ' '* 


% , 

c 


. 0 --i - 



St,: ". •- y' : > . - 

kS^ AV ,^' ■*• ■»"•■'.. i« '-lyw^ -. ' '■ i ■ i .* »'• V '^r s t’ y’>T’r . - 1 11'’ t mlVtffc’t'ri Si '^r * • •" - • 



§.Vi 


THE APPLES OF SIN. 


“ A strange punishment to the workers of iniquity,” 


Job xxxi., 3, 


Chapter L 

THE MAN AND THE WOMAN. 

HE apples of sin are all poisoned at the 



core,” she said, “and every unlawful 


pleasure we pursue is transformed at last into 
a hound that turns and rends us. There was a 
time when you would have sold your soul to 
call me yours ; and now — well, now, you would 
give the world to be rid of me. You would 
murder me, I believe, if you dared, but you 
haven’t the courage to be criminal, and even 
the relation in which we stand to each other 
to-day was not of your bringing about. I left 
home and husband to come to you, and though 
you were not too moral to avail yourself of my 


97 


98 


THE APPLES OF SIN. 


madness, you were not man enough to look 
God in the face, and say : — ‘ I have sinned, and 
must bear the consequences of my sinning : ’ 
but have whimpered ever since like a hound 
that expects a whipping, and now you are pray- 
ing to Him to rid you of me, that you may 
marry some good and reputable woman, and 
thus recover your respectability and your for- 
feited hope of heaven.” 

I looked round, apprehensive of listeners, 
but not a soul could be seen from the lonely 
Belgian hillside upon which we were standing. 
The one hotel of the village lay upon the other 
side of the hill, and though I knew that the land- 
lord and his wife had witnessed our quarrel in 
the morning, it was not likely that they would 
set any watch upon our subsequent pro- 
ceedings. 

How weary I was of this woman, no words 
can say. Her’s was a love which was always at 
white heat, and unless I was continually pro- 
testing my affection, I was charged with indif- 


THE APPLES OF SIN. 


99 


ference and change. Passion which has once 
passed away will never return under protest, 
and the kisses and caresses, which I had at one 
time coveted, had become stale and joyless to 
me, for she was lavish of them, and we do not 
prize that which we are put to no pains to win. 
She was right, too, in saying that I was too 
cowardly to be criminal, and that I was seeking 
an excuse to put an end to our connection. I 
had often in my lifetime stepped aside from the 
paths of right-doing into the by-ways of sin, but 
I had taken care to keep an eye upon the road 
whence I came, for I was too fearful of conse- 
quences to wander far afield. When she and I 
had slipt into sin together, I had had no inten- 
tion of continuing in open defiance of the moral 
law. The possibility of her leaving home and 
husband to come to me, as she had done, had 
never entered into my calculations ; and had it 
not been that she had already made confession 
of her infidelity, I should have insisted on her 
immediate return. 


100 


THE APPLES OF SIN 


The time came, however, when I determined 
to break with her ; but instead of telling her of 
my intention to her face, I informed her that it 
was necessary for me to go for a day or two to 
Belgium on business, and thence I wrote to 
her, saying that I had decided our connection 
must end. To my surprise (for I had thought 
that her pride would have prevented her from 
taking such a step) she had followed me, to 
make one last appeal, and hence it was that she 
and I stood together that fatal morning upon 
the lonely Belgian hillside. 


Chapter II. 


Ye have scarce the soul of a louse,” he said, 

“ But the roots of sin are there.” 

Kipling’s “ Tomlinson.’ 


“ TOMLINSON ” SECUNDUS. 

OU cannot, you cannot want to leave me 



now, and after all that has happened ! ’ 


she continued. “You are my husband in the 
sight of God, if not of the world, and I swear 
that if you do not marry me, I will kill m^^self.” 

“ Look ! ” she cried, fumbling in the folds of 
her dress and producing a pistol. “This is 
yours. I took it from your dressing table in 
the morning. Promise that you will marry me, 
or I will shoot myself where I stand ! ” 

I made no answer, for I was thinking what 
my life might have been had I never come 
within her fatal influence — of what it might yet 


101 


102 


THE APPLES OF SIN, 


be, if that influence were for ever withdrawn. 
Were she gone, I could look men and women 
in the face once more, fearing nothing, and con- 
cealing naught. I could range myself on the 
side of right again, and no more hear myself 
condemned in every law-breaker whom the 
world cast out. I saw myself in imagination, no 
longer the prey of unhallowed passion, but liv- 
ing a life of sweet domestic bliss. Little children 
climbed upon my knee to call me “ father ” and 
a sweet woman-face — the face of one, through 
whose pure prayers and counsels, I should 
forget and outlive my sin-stained past — was for- . 
ever at my side. 

Her words awoke a savage hope in my heart 
— the hope that she would carry out her threat, 
and thus free me from a connection which 
threatened to ruin my career, and which I had 
long wished at an end. In wish and will I was 
at that moment a murderer, although I was too 
great a coward to let the thought of taking her 
life, by any act of mine, as much as cross the 


THE APPLES OF SIN. 


103 


disc of my consciousness. But I knew well 
that she was desperate, and that it was in my 
power to drive her to madness by a single 
word, or to soothe her to the gentleness of a 
child. When I had been most inconsiderately 
cruel to her (as men, God forgive them ! are, 
sooner or later, cruel to the women who have 
trusted them too well) her looks, as well as her 
words of scorn, had shown how accurately she 
guaged the selfishness of my nature. And yet 
— so inexplicable a mystery is a woman’s love, — 
she, knowing me as she did, still clung to me 
with an unreasoning and desperate infatuation, 
upon which I had often coldly calculated, when 
I had wanted to attain some selfish end. Some- 
times, when our quarrels were at the worst, a 
sudden revulsion of feeling would come over 
her, and she would cast herself at my feet — 
like a hound that crawls back to lick the hand 
which has beaten it — and look up into my face 
with eyes of dumb, dog-like devotion and 
despair. 


104 


THE APPLES OF SIN. 


I saw some such change coming over her 
then, and, fearful lest it might tempt her to for- 
get her threat, I answered her with the taunt 
which I knew would madden her most. 

“ Go back to the man you left, and to your 
dishonoured children, and try to frighten them 
with your tragedy-queen airs and threats of 
suicide, for I have done with you once and 
for ever.” 

“My God!” she cried, reeling as from a 
blow, and white to the lips. “ My God ! and it 
is for this that I have made myself what I am ! ” 

I have said that I was a murderer, and the 
word which I spoke then (I will not set it down 
here) stretched her dead at my feet, as truly 
as if it had been I who pointed the weapon or 
pulled the trigger. She fell without a word or 
groan, the pistol still in her hand ; and I re- 
member that I stood with bent head, looking 
down upon her in a horrified stupor, and won- 
dering, in a curious childish way, how long those 
thin wreaths of smoke would continue to curl 


THE APPLES OF SIN, 


105 


upward from the barrel mouth. But within a 
moment after the deed was done, it appeared 
something so hideously different from what it 
had appeared a second before it was done, that 
it seemed to me as if my whole world had 
changed with the report of the pistol — as if I 
had passed from one self into another. The 
new self stood, with the dead body at its feet, 
by the brink of an ever-widening gulf, upon the 
farther side of which — now fast receding into 
distance — was set the old self which I had once 
thought so guilty, but which, when compared 
with the present self, shone out like innocence 
beside infamy. 


Chapter III. 


AFTERWARDS. 


OW that the end, which I had with such 



1 1 devilish deliberation sought to attain, was 
indeed accomplished, it seemed to me a thing 
so unnaturally and monstrously impossible, that 
I was incapable of realizing it. 

“She is dead,” I said, as though I were tell- 
ing it to some person slow of comprehension. 
“ She is dead, and I am her murderer ! ” 

So conscious was I of the fact that I was not 
merely morally, but in every sense of tKe word, 
guilty, that I felt it as necessary to conceal the 
evidence of my crime, as if it had been my 
hand which had actually shed her blood. I re- 
membered too that I was known to have quar- 
relled with her in the morning ; that it was in 
my company she had last been seen ; that it 
was by my pistol her life had been taken ; and 


106 


THE APPLES OF SIN, 


107 


that if the body were found, and inquiries made, 
nothing could save me from being convicted of 
the murder. A panic seized me as I thought of 
all this, a panic which paralyzed body and brain, 
brought out a cold sweat upon hands and fore- 
head, and set me trembling like a palsied man. 
I looked around in an agony of fear, and as I 
did so, my eyes fell upon a long narrow fissure 
in the chalky hillside, a natural crevice formed 
by the cracking of the earth in a former dry 
season. I dared not lift the body, lest the blood 
which was still welling from the wound, and 
from which as the fierce rays of the summer sun 
•beat upon it, there rose a warm and insufferable 
odour which turned me sick, should find its way 
upon my hands or clothes, so I dragged the 
corpse by the feet to the side of the natural 
grave I had found, and then gently rolled it into 
the aperture. It slid down until it stopped at 
a bend where the fissure slanted away to the 
right, but, by means of my walking stick, I man- 
aged to force it round the angle where it was 


108 


THE APPLES OF SIN. 


out of sight, and then, after filling up the fissure 
with stones and rubble, and covering the blood 
stains with earth I stood up — to do what ? To 
think? No, that way madness lay; that was 
the one thing I dared not do ; the one thing of 
all others I must at any cost avoid. I had mur- 
der upon my conscience now, and, as the soul 
which is once dyed black can take no darker 
stain, I felt that there was no sin of act or 
thought, no evil, no matter how foul, that I 
would at that moment have hesitated to com- 
mit, if only it would serve to save me from the 
memory of what I had done. I, who in the past 
had been refined and delicately fastidious even 
in regard to my thoughts, now strove in a very 
frenzy of fear to stimulate all that was low and 
evil within me, in order that I might lash my- 
self into a savage sensuality, which should 
dominate body and brain, and save me from 
thinking of what I had done. I knew that 
Nemesis stalked like a shadow at my side, 
pointing with one grisly hand to a scroll which 


THE APPLES OF SIN, 


109 


he held in the other, and I knew that on that 
scroll the word “Murderer” was inscribed in 
letters of fire, and that in the moment when I 
looked thereon, hell itself would lay hold on 
me. 

A sudden terror pf solitude seized me, for 
solitude meant something scarcely less terrible 
than death. To be alone was to be at the 
mercy of my thoughts — of the thought which I 
dared not think ; and hurrying as though a pack 
of fiends were after me, I climbed the hill, and 
passed down into the village. 


Chapter IV. 


THE CAVERN. 


”IRIVED at the hotel, I sent for the land- 



lord, and told him that I would take 
lunch at table d’hote, and not in my own rooms 
as I had done on previous days. 

“And madame?” he said, in a tone of defer- 
ential inquiry. 

“Madame,” I answered, “has already re- 
turned to Brussels. The business about which 
she came to see me is finished, and she has gone 
by diligence to the station,” 

I said this with perfect ease and self-posses- 
sion, for I was calm with the indifference of de- 
spair. We can scarce conceal our annoyance 
at some petty slight, and over-do the indiffer- 
ence we assume, but we never act more natur- 
ally than when despair is eating at our hearts, 
and we care not whether we be believed or not. 


no 


THE APPLES OF SIN. 


Ill 


The hotel keeper bowed, being evidently 
quite satisfied with my explanation, but lingered 
to say that a party was being formed to visit the 
famous subterranean caverns in the neighbor- 
hood, and that if I cared to join, he would arrange 
the matter for me. Anything which promised 
companionship and an adventure was welcome, 
and more than welcome, and I answered that 
I should be delighted to avail myself of the 
offer. 

I have no recollection of what was said at 
lunch or during the drive to the caverns, for I 
had fallen into a strange daze or stupor, in which 
I spoke and acted mechanically. The faces of 
the folk at table d’hote appeared to recede 
before my eyes, so that I seemed to be looking 
at them down a vista, and their voices sounded 
as if from a distance. But I talked well, and 
even brilliantly, and I know that I did so, as I 
might have known it of another person. The 
real self which had shrunk inward like a snail 
within a shell, where it lay hugging its guilty 


112 


THE APPLES OF SIN, 


secret to its heart, away from its own sight and 
the sight of others, looked out with wondering, 
watchful eyes at the smiling stranger, who bore 
its name and likeness, and asked itself where 
was the brain which animated the puppet, and 
whence came the words which rose so readily 
to its lips. 

When we arrived at our destination, the 
guide, after putting a lighted torch in the hand 
of every third person, bade us follow carefully 
in his footsteps, and we entered the caverns. 
For the first few hundred yards he led us through 
a series of pitch-dark grottoes where our way 
wound in and out among fantastically-formed 
stalactites and stalagmites that writhed like 
huge reptiles around us, and then, after creep- 
ing, bent double, through a slimy-walled tunnel 
from the roof of which the percolating waters 
dropped monotonously into little pools below, 
we emerged into an enormous cavern-hall, lofty 
as a vast cathedral. Though the guide hurled 
flaming brands high into the air overhead, and 


THE APPLES OF SIN. 


113 


as far on either side as his strength would allow, 
no glimpse of the cavern’s limits was revealed, 
nor could the combined light of all our torches 
penetrate the unsearchable darkness which 
brooded like a starless midnight around. A 
fierce wind that was as icy-cold as if it blew from 
the halls of death, swept shrieking like a flight 
of fiends, over our heads, and as it died away 
howling and rumbling in the womb of night, we 
heard the rush and roar of waters beneath us. 
Calling out that none was to move, the guide 
tossed a lighted torch into the air. It fell a 
yard or two in front of us, but instead of strik- 
ing ground, as we had expected, rushed hissing 
down an abyss which opened almost at our feet, 
and at the bottom of which we saw surging 
sullenly on, an ink-black river of death. And 
around us writhed foul slimy things that stole 
noiselessly away into [the darkness ; and above 
us circled clouds of bat-like creatures, uttering 
unearthly cries of impotent anger. 

And then, in an instant, a strange faintness 


114 


THE APPLES OF S!E. 


came over me. I saw the guide take up his 
bundle of torches to resume the march, and 
heard him bidding us walk warily and keep 
together, but though I strove to cry out for 
help, my parched lips gave forth no sound. In 
a very paroxysm of terror, for I was, at that 
moment, the last of the party, and being per- 
sonally unknown to the others, was not likely 
to be missed, I attempted to catch at the coat 
of the man in front of me, but being giddy with 
fear and faintness, I fell forward upon my face. 
For one second the darkness which seemed 
suddenly to become palpable, and the light of 
the torches, swam round and round me in a 
mad dance ; in another second the lights were 
gone, and I saw only the darkness, which still 
whirled on in spirals that came ever nearer and 
nearer, as if a huge black boa-constrictor were 
contracting his folds around me — and then night 
closed over me like a sea, and I knew no more. 


Chapter V. 


MURDER AND SOUL-MURDER. 

H OW long I lay thus I cannot say, but when 
next I opened my eyes, I remembered 
nothing, was conscious of nothing, save of a 
death-cold numbness in body and limb. I asked 
myself where I was and looked around from 
side to side in a sudden, inexplicable terror, but 
though I strained my eyeballs till they cracked 
in their sockets, I could not pierce the impene- 
trable darkness which closed about me like a 
cloak. I pnt out my hand to feel where I was 
lying, and with the shudder which ran through 
me as I touched the ice-cold and clammy ground, 
the past rose up in a flash, and I knew that I 
was alone, with murder most foul upon my soul, 
alone, and in that awful abode of darkness and 
death. 


116 


116 


THE APPLES OF SIN 


But it was not the fear of death, nor the dark- 
ness of the place, nor its loneliness, but my own 
thoughts, which lent such supreme agony to 
my awakening, and caused me to leap to my 
feet with the cry of a hunted creature, and to 
shriek out to God, in His mercy, to slay me. 
For in that moment, the thoughts, to escape 
from which I would have sought distraction in 
the vilest sin, the thoughts which even in the 
open air and the daylight, I dared not think, 
gave tongue like hounds that sight the quarry 
they had feared would escape them, and leapt 
upon me — a bloody pack — as though to rend 
my very soul. A whole aeon of hell-torture 
was concentrated into every minute that passed. 
It seemed impossible that I could endure such 
anguish, and live ; — as if mental pain must kill 
as surely as physical. 

But when the death which I had half-hoped 
for came not, I dropped, huddled in a heap to 
the ground, and, clutching my throat with both 
hands, strove to throttle the life out of me, and 


THE APPLES OF SIN. 


117 


well-nigh succeeded, had not a terrible physical 
faintness which forced my nerveless fingers to 
loosen and relax, left me choking and gasping 
for breath, with eyes starting from their sockets, 
and lolling tongue adrip. 

For a long time I lay thus, helpless and half- 
dead in body, but with brain abnormally active 
and alive. Thoughts came and went con- 
tinually — now racing by like bridleless horses — 
now seething and surging in the maelstrom of 
my mind, like waters in a whirlpool. Remorse 
awful beyond conception — for the woman I had 
murdered had sinned only in loving me too well 
— and which was more terrible than any phy- 
sical pain, racked me with an agony which be- 
came every minute more unendurable. And 
then a strange thing happened to me, for an 
unconscious habit of thought brought about a 
self-revelation in which I read my own heart as 
I had never read it before, and I saw something 
there which added immeasurably to the supreme 
agony of that moment. I had never made any 


118 


THE APPLES^ OF SIN. 


pretence of entertaining a grand passion for the 
woman with whom I had sinned. The passion 
was all on her side, and my part had been more 
passive than active. But cut off and disowned, 
as both of us had been, by onr relatives, we had 
naturally come to depend a great deal upon 
each other, and for some months it had been 
my habit to come to her for sympathy in all my 
troubles. The child-instinct which taught us, 
in all oui sorrows to nestle up for shelter into 
the warm darkness, the soft, sweet-smelling 
silence of a woman’s bosom, never dies out in 
us ; and the man for whom, though all else be 
lost, there yet throbs one faithful woman-heart 
upon which he may pillow his head, is not 
all to be pitied, for to him there remains the 
divinest comfort which any human creature 
may know. 

So accustomed was I to look to her for con- 
solation in all my troubles, that even in this aw- 
ful hour, an unconscious habit of thought set 
stirring in my momentarily benumbed brain the 


THE APPLES OF SIN, 


119 


idea, that in her sympathy, at least, I should 
find some lightening of my agony. But in the 
next instant I remembered that the agony from 
which I thus sought to find surcease, was re- 
morse for her most foul murder, and I laughed 
a laugh which was more awful than any cry. 

And in that moment of self-revelation I read 
my heart as I had never read it before, and I 
knew that the woman of whom I fancied my- 
self weary, was the one and only, being in the 
world who was more necessary to me than the 
air I breathed — that I had grown to love her 
with an intensity of which I could not have be- 
lieved my selfish nature capable. 

With a great cry of infinite love and longing 
I sprang to my feet, stretching out my arms to 
the empty darkness, as though the very inten- 
sity of my passion must compel her bodily pres- 
ence. Her face rose before me, imploring and 
beseeching as I had so often seen it in the past. 
Her timid touch was on my arm again ; her 
tear-filled eyes looked into mine ; and I heard 


120 


THE APPLES OP SIN, 


her tremulous voice, pleading piteously as I 
had heard it plead on the very day of her death, 
for the tender words which I had refused to 
speak. I knew, in that moment that my love 
for her was so great that were I under the open 
sky again, and in possession of all that made 
life sweet, I should have loathed the very sun- 
shine which warmed a world in which she was 
not. I loved her so truly that life without her 
were to me more lonely and desolate than death 
would be to the Christian without his God. It 
was at my heart that the weapon which shed her 
blood had been pointed ; it was my happiness, 
here and hereafter, as well as her life, which I 
had slain. I knew then that I had murdered 
the soul and killed the body of the woman I 
loved — the woman who should have been more 
sacred to me than all which is on earth or in 
heaven. 

‘'Hear me, O God ! ” I cried, “ and visit the 
sin not upon her, but upon me ! Spare me 
that hell at least ! — the hell of knowing that 


THE APPLES OF SIN, 


121 


Thou gavest an immortal soul into my keeping, 
and that I flung it back to Thee stained and 
shamed and lost to all eternity ! Spare me 
that, for Thy Christ’s sake, and upon my head 
be it visited, O God ! if Thou art, indeed, a 
God of Justice, — and not upon hers ! ” 

“ But she is not dead ! I cannot believe it ! I 
will not. She could not go — she who loved me 
so well — where the sound of my voice would 
not recall her ! She is mine, and I am hers, 
and we must be together, in hell, if need must 
be, but always together, O God ! she and 1.” 

Does God hear and heed the supplications 
of His creatures ? I think so, and God help 
the sinner whom God derides by the satire of 
an answered prayer ! 

For one moment the intensity of my anguish 
caused my heart, strained well-nigh unto burst- 
ing, to fail me, and I staggered forward a step 
or two, but my nerveless limbs gave way be- 
neath me, and I sank to the ground, fainting 
and fighting for breath. But as I lay, a name- 


122 


THE APPLES OF SIN. 


less horror seized me, a horror of something 
which lay beside me, a something which I had 
neither touched nor seen, but of which every 
fibre of my body was conscious, and which 
caused my very flesh to creep on my bones, as 
it shrank back, shuddering from fear of contact. 
In one second I had drawn a box of matches 
from my pocket, and had struck a light, and 
then there rang out a shriek more awful than 
hell has ever known, for that somethmg which 
lay beside me was the body of the woman I had 
murdered, and which the waters had washed 
down from the crevice in which I had placed it, 
and carried to my feet in answer to my prayer. 


Chapter VI. 


MY ATONEMENT. 


CC OU have been ill, Monsieur,” said the 



landlord of the hotel, when, on open- 


ing my eyes, and finding myself lying on the 
bed which I had previously occupied, I asked 
him what had happened. 

“How long? and who is that?” I inquired, 
pointing to a man in uniform, who stood near 
the window. 

“That, Monsieur, is a police officer, and you 
have been ill three weeks, and no wonder ! You 
were found in the cavern — with Madame. 
Madame was dead,^ and — well the officer is 
waiting for you to explain.” 

“ Call the man here,” I answered, but he was 
already beside me. 

“ My good sir,” he said, not unkindly, “there 
is really no need for anxiety. The doctors are 


123 


124 


THE APPLES OF SIN. 


all of opinion from the direction of the shot 
that it was a case of suicide, but the circum- 
stances are unpleasant, and — well, you will have 
to explain them.” 

“ I can explain them,” I replied. 

“Of course you can, of course you can,” he 
said, “but don’t let us talk about it now, for 
anything you say will be taken down, and 
might be used against you.” 

“ It will not matter, in view of what I have to 
say,” I answered, “for the woman you found 
was murdered, and I am her murderer.” 


A LITERARY GENT. 

A STUDY IN VANITY AND DIPSOMANIA. 


“And sometimes we are devils to ourselves, 

When we will tempt the frailty of our powers, 
Presuming on their changeful potency.” 

Thoilus and Cbessida, Act iv, Sc. iv. 



■y' -■"^. 'i*%^ fc'*’* ’"' •• * 

'■ -» ^ I’-* *■•' — •- ■' -- «* 


x ' 

I 

.^• 


O. > 


• . • 


■ ^ 

/*.• k *. . 


\, 


>'vi 

' > 


Sf"'v: 


s7 ->*1 TLi; 

N, - •*«& " 

• a - ^ A 


» X 


"v r ' ••■-’*/-- < 't* ■ .' - 

•' 

.Vj'5iv A// _ 

^ ' -i- Ik''.*- I • ■ -* . I "* . 


\ • 


X 


--•v* •- ■ 

'' 

" -'-It ■ 




. 4 


•A/:*- .;.1^ 

•» j 


» 


» -• 



* - •■» — :; , ■ ■ 
vf^'V- -^ • ■ ^ *■ . 

•%tr -r - • ' I 


/. v^! 





.' 1 ’ s - ** rr •^ak« 

.’i,. ^-r-' - 


^ '. - 


: ^ nj,. •<-- 

^'r:- 


■" ■-■v"" "■' ^.‘^V'^l-./ , :,j 


‘ ii*-' ' f . Vi a,*?y 

y •.*.-• * 



A LITERARY GENT. 


Chapter I. 


En route to the dinner — My first warning. 


OU tell me, Frank,” he said, “that your 



circumstances — your being a bachelor. 


and so on — are against your leading as temperate 
a life as you wish to lead ; but ‘circumstances,’ 
my dear boy, never yet made the man do 
right who didn’t do right in spite of them. It’s 


quite true that I’ve never known you the worse 


for drink, but I can’t help noticing that the habit 
of indulgence has been growing bn you some- 
what lately, and though I have no doubt you 
mean what you say when you tell me you intend 
to be very careful about everything of the sort 
when you are married, I should like to see you 
make the change beforehand, if my Alice is to 
be your wife.” 


127 


128 


A LITERARY GENT. 


“My dear Colonel Frazer,” I said, lightly^ 
“you need not have the slightest anxiety upon 
that score. If it were a new thing for me to 
take a little stimulant now and then, it would be 
a different matter, but I’ve been used to drink- 
ing in moderation for years, and I know just 
when to begin and when to leave off.” 

“ I’m sorry to be disagreeable, Frank,” he 
persisted, “ but you know as well as I do what 
it was spoilt your father’s life ; and when there 
is a chance of a man having the thing in his 
blood, the best course he can pursue is not to 
drink at all. I quite agree with what you said 
just now about the intemperate advocates of a 
cause doing it more harm than its enemies ; but 
when we are dealing with a thing so accursed 
that it can make men spend their money in 
public-houses while their wives and children are 
starving at home or in the streets — when I read 
in the papers of the murders and worse-than- 
bestial outrages which, almost every day, are 
committed under the influence of drink, I tell 


A LITERARY GENT. 


129 


you, sir, that, man of the world and old soldier 
as I am, I can sympathize with the veriest tee- 
total ranter that ever thumped a tub. And as 
for what you said about ‘ temperance fanatics ’ 
and the ‘folly of extreme measures,’ I think 
you might just as reasonably complain of the 
fanaticism of the sanitary authorities in taking 
‘ extreme measures ’ to keep the cholera out of 
England — and drink kills more men, and 
women too, I am afraid, in this country, each 
year than the cholera does in a century. No, 
Frank, my boy ; you’re a good fellow and I like 
you ; but there’s no doubt that the habit has 
been growing on you lately, and when I remem- 
ber your father, I must stick to my point, if 
you’re to marry my girl. Come, give me your 
promise that you’ll turn the thing up altogether, 
and let’s drop the subject.” 

“Promises and pledges are for weak-minded 
fools who have no will of their own,” I answered 
hotly, being annoyed at his persistence ; “ I’m 
not one of that sort, and I know what I’m about. 


130 


A LITERARY GENT. 


Tve never given you cause to speak to me as 
you have to-night, and I must say that I consider 
your remarks almost insulting. But excuse 
me, here we are at Sir Frederick’s, and as his 
dinner-hour is seven, we have no time to spare 
for further unprofitable discussions.” 


Chapter II. 


At Sir Frederick’s — I lose my head, and make my first slip. 

M y seat at dinner was, I discovered to my 
annoyance, exactly opposite to that of 
Colonel Frazer, my future father-in-law and 
would-be mentor. I was already flushed and 
heated by his remarks ; and it did not mend 
matters when I found, or fancied that I found, 
he was narrowly watching what I drank ; and 
as I was determined to show him that I was not 
to be bullied or dictated to, I took wine with 
each course more freely than was my custom. 
Under other circumstances, and in my usually 
collected condition, this would have been fol- 
lowed by no perceptible result ; but Colonel 
Frazer’s insulting remarks and subsequent 
offensive behaviour had brought about such a 
state of brain and nerve irritation, that the 
wine affected me almost immediately, and by 


131 


132 


A LITERARY GENT 


the time two or three courses had been gone 
through, I scarcely knew what I was about. 
Up to this point, I had said or done nothing to 
attract attention ; but as time went on, I found 
myself almost monopolising the conversation ; 
and as the more I talked, the more excited I 
became, I am afraid that long before dinner 
was over my remarks had become not only in- 
considered, but inconsiderate. I had not, how- 
ever, so lost my head as to be altogether 
unconscious of the fact that some of the guests 
were beginning to look at me curiously, and to 
exchange meaning glances among themselves. 
My wisest plan would have been to withraw at 
once from the conversation, and to remain 
comparatively silent for the rest of the evening, 
but I was too flushed and excited to have the 
complete control over myself which was neces- 
sary for such a course. At last, and in order 
to cover a remark which, directly I had said it, 
I felt was both wild and foolish, I broke into 
and interrupted a conversation which was being 


A LITERARY GENT. 


133 


carried on between Sir Frederick and one of 
his guests. The slightest possible lifting of 
our host’s eyebrows, as he turned courteously 
to accord me his attention, told me of what I 
was next moment aware — that the interruption 
was in anything but good taste; and this, in 
conjunction with a cup of strong coffee, had 
some effect in recalling me to myself But 
when, pleading a headache, I took an early 
leave, I carried with me the mortifying con- 
sciousness that I had, for the first time in my 
life, been betrayed into drinking more wine 
than was consistent with the self-possession 
and self-restraint which are the first essentials 
of all well-bred intercourse, and that I had thus 
been guilty of one of the most unpardonable 
forms of social suicide. 


Chapter III. 


I make self excuses and good resolutions. 

H OW natural it is, says an American humor- 
ist, for a man who has made a fool of 
himself to ease his mind by cursing somebody 
else for it. When I awoke on the morning 
following the dinner at Sir Frederick Dean’s, 
and recollected with intense mortification what 
had happened the night before, it was against 
Colonel Frazer, rather than against myself, 
that my indignation was directed. I was the 
more convinced that it was at his door, and not 
mine, that the fault lay, from the fact that, so 
far from ever having been guilty of a similar 
offence in the past, I had, on the contrary, 
achieved something of a reputation for irre- 
proachable bearing, and was regarded, even in 
the most fastidious “set,” as a man whom it 


134 


A LITEI^AEY GENT, 


135 


was particularly safe to ask anywhere, or to 
meet any one. 

But for Colonel Frazer’s ill-timed and im- 
pertinent remark, I should have been, I told 
myself, as collected and self-possessed as was 
my wont ; and but for his particularly offensive 
conduct in watching what wine I took, I should 
never have been betrayed into any excess. For 
what had happened, he and only he, was ac- 
countable ; and the more assured I became of 
this fact the less inclined was I to under-esti- 
mate the heinousness of the offence. Had any 
one but the father of the woman I loved been 
guilty of such ungentlemanly behaviour, I 
would have declined to have anything further 
to do with him. As it was, I determined that 
if when I called to see Alice that night Colonel 
Frazer referred in any way to the events of the 
preceding evening, I would give him clearly to 
understand what my views were upon the sub- 
ject. When I arrived at the house, however, I 
heard that he had been summoned out of town 


136 


A LITERARY GENT. 


on urgent business, and was not likely to return 
for some weeks. But I saw and spent the 
evening with Alice, who, though she was, as I 
now know, aware of what had happened, never 
alluded to it by look or word. When I bade 
her “ good-night,” and returned to my chambers, 
I was more in love with her than I had ever 
been, and — shall I say it ? — not a little ashamed 
of myself, and full of good resolutions for the 
future. 


Chapter IV. 


My first book — I awake to find myself famous and get a bad attack of 
“ swelled head.” 


OLONEL FRAZER did not treat me 



very cordially when he returned, but 
he refrained from any allusion to what had 
happened, or from again favouring me with 
his views upon the total abstinence ques- 
tion. Though I had not forgotten the in- 
cident at Sir Frederick Deane’s, I knew myself 
too well to fear any repetition of the mistake 
I had made on that occasion ; and the months 
as they went by fully justified my confidence in 
myself. At last the time approached when I 
felt I might reasonably ask Alice to fix the date 
of our marriage, which was finally settled for 
the following spring. This was in the autumn, 
and it was almost immediately afterwards that 
my first book was published. The success of 


137 


138 


A LITERARY GENT, 


the volume — which was on Social Reform — was 
immense and immediate ; and I might almost 
say that I went to bed one night a nobody, and 
awoke in the morning to find my book a 
“boom,” and my personality an object of 
public interest. 

The suddenness and unexpectedness of the 
notoriety I had achieved had the not uncom- 
mon effect of turning my head completely. 
Great as was the stir which the book had made, 
this stir assumed such exaggerated propor- 
tions in my eyes, that it seemed to me as if 
the nation — not to say the world — instead of 
that microscopical minority of the population 
which is known as the “reading public,” was 
concerning itself about me. I walked, or rather 
swaggered the streets, puffed up with pride and 
self-sufficiency, as I told myself that I — the 
being inside this suit of clothes and wearing 
this identical hat — was the Frank Russell about 
whom everyone was talking, and whose portrait 
was in all the papers. If anything be needed 


A LITERARY GENT 


139 


to prove how unsubstantial was the basis upon 
which the fabric of my fame was erected, I 
think it is to be found in the fact that I was 
thus spoilt by success. The man who, con- 
scious of great abilities, toils patiently on un- 
recognised and unknown, until at last, by sheer 
force of intellect or of character, he collars the 
great world as a policeman collars a prisoner, 
and assisting the gaping creature, by means of 
a fist fixed in the scruff of the neck, up to the 
book or picture it has persistently neglected, 
says: “ There, you fool ! Look as that! It’s 
been staring you in the face long enough ! ” — 
that man is rarely spoiled by success, be it slow 
or sudden, when it comes. If the_j5mile with 
which he hears the public gushing as persist- 
ently about his work, as it had in the past persist- 
ently ignored it, is a smile of gratification, the 
gratification is not altogether umixed with 
cynicism or contempt. And so far from being’ 
inclined to give himself airs or to lose his head, 
he is not a little shamefaced that so much has 


140 


A LITERARY GENT, 


been made of so little ; and is inclined, in his 
less hopeful moments, to ask himself whether 
work which has been so indiscriminately praised 
is not more shoddy and less sterling than he 
had believed it to be. 

No such mistrust of myself or of my abilities 
ever troubled my peace of mind, and I regarded 
my “ fame ” (the words mean in these nine- 
teenth century days, as Mr. Oscar Wilde once 
wittily said, “being talked about in the penny 
and halfpenny newspapers ”) as seriously as if 
the verdict of the press of the day had al- 
ready been endorsed by posterity. The 
amount of money I managed to spend in periodi- 
cal literature at that time was marvellous ; and 
I invested the various journals with a sort of 
personality, in accordance with the views they 
took in regard to my book, or the amount of 
space they devoted to paragraphs about myself 
But so far from being grateful to the men who 
had done most to exploit me, I felt when, as 
afterwards happened, the interest in my book 


A LITERARY GENT 


141 


subsided and — a scandal in high life succeeding 
to the first place in public attention — my name 
began to drop out of the papers, that these 
same men had treated me exceedingly ill. 
Jealousy had prompted them, I declared, to 
enter into a conspiracy to crush me ; and I was 
more malignantly inclined towards them than I 
was towards the journalists who had never 
noticed me at all. 

But, during the time of which I am now writ- 
ing, the “boom” was in full swing, and my 
vanity seemed to grow by what it fed on, and 
to become each day more and more insatiable. 
Flattery could not be fulsome enough for my 
voracious maw, and I know now that at one 
of the literary and artistic clubs I frequented, 
“trailing” me was a frequent pastime among 
the members. Except for the fact that most of 
us like to be on intimate terms with a “lion,” 
I think my many acquaintances must have sick- 
ened at the sight of me during those weeks. 
As the bee flits from flower to flower to drain 


142 


A LITERARY GENT. 


the honey, so I went from friend to friend, 
greedily drinking to the dregs the cups of flat- 
tery which were offered me, and making my 
house-to-house visitations with all the persist- 
ency of a tax-gatherer. . Chance acquaintances, 
whom I had lost sight of for years, I now looked 
up as anxiously as if I hoped to borrow money 
from them. Each one of them represented 
to me an as-yet unreaped harvest-field of flat- 
tery ; and the arrogance with which I treated 
those who did not appear to be sufficiently 
impresssd with a due sense of my new import- 
ance was only equalled by the insufferable 
patronage which I graciously extended to those 
who seemed to have formed a proper estimate 
of my merits. 


Chapter V. 


The “ boom ” progresses, and I become a man of much importance. 


NE morning, a few weeks after the pub- 



lication of my book, and when the 
“ boom ” was at its height, I took up The Times, 
and having ascertained that it contained no 
“reviews,’’ commenced turning the pages of 
general news with a somewhat languid and ex- 
hausted interest. Suddenly I gave a start, and 
clutching excitedly at the paper, sat bolt upright 
in my chair, flushed to the forehead, and with 
staring eyes, that had scarcely looked at one 
line, before they had snatched the sense of the 
next, and leaping on to the following one, had 
raced, lightning-like, down the columns — two 
of which bristled with my name. A prominent 
member of the House of Commons had — -so the 
paper told me — asked the Home Secretary 'if 
his attention had been called to some appalling 


143 


144 


A LITERARY GENT 


statistics given in a volume (mentioning my 
book by name) which dealt with certain social 
questions of the highest importance to public 
morality, and if so, whether Her Majesty’s Gov- 
ernment proposed taking any steps in the 
matter. An evasive and unsatisfactory reply 
had called forth a storm of dissent, and resulted 
in something like a scene in the House, and as 
a consequence the papers were full of me and 
my book. I had hardly finished the report of 
the speeches before a telegram was brought me 
by the maid-servant, and on opening it, I found 
it was from the editor of , the most import- 

ant and influential of all the monthly reviews, 
asking me to write a paper on social reform for 
his next number. He offered me an unusually 
handsome fee, but said that as the month was 
already far gone, he had to go to press in a 
couple of days, and could give me only till the 
following night to send in my copy. His tele- 
gram concluded with the words : “ Next month 
too late.” 


A LITERARY GENT 


145 


I decided instantly to accept his offer. The 
time was certainly very short, but no prepara- 
tion would be necessary, as my mind was full 
of the subject, and even if my paper lacked 
finish, it would certainly be the stronger for 
being written at white heat. Next month, 
as the editor rightly said, would be too late. 
Public attention is notoriously fickle, and before 
then, some royal or eminent personage might 
die or get into the Divorce Courts, or some- 
thing else happen to distract people’s minds. 
In five minutes after my reply was despatched, 
I was hard at work. I worked all that day, and 
the greater part of the night. My excitement 
was so intense that I was quite unable to take 
solid food, and except a little whisky-and-water 
which I sipped when I found myself beginning 
to flag, nothing passed my lips until the paper 
was done, which was on the afternoon of the 
following day. That article was the high-water 
mark of my literary achievements. In it I sur- 
passed and surprised myself beyond my most 
sanguine hopes. Something outside myself 


146 


A LITERARY GENT 


seemed to animate and to inspire me. The 
red-hot thoughts, to which I gave utterance, the 
noble and eloquent language in which I ex- 
pressed them, were not mine. Such thoughts 
and such language had never been at my com- 
mand in the past ; they have never been at my 
command since. 

I remember that when I was young, impres- 
sionable and a hero-worshipper, and had high 
ideals about life and especially about authorship, 
I used to believe with George Eliot that all our 
noblest thoughts are given to us — that they 
come from some source outside ourselves, and 
are, in a measure, an inspiration. But after a 
time it occurred to me that if this be true of 
what is great in literature, it must be true, to 
some extent of passages in, for instance, Byron, 
which though unquestionably finer than any- 
thing to be found in the works of many 
authors to whom George Eliot’s theory about 
inspiration would apply, are hardly the kind of 
thing to which one would apply the term “in- 
spired.” 


A LITERARY GENT, 


147 


And when I recollected that I had heard in 
my boyhood one of the most eminent and elo- 
quent preachers of the day (a man who was 
frequently spoken of as “inspired”) tell my 
father that he had, on a particular occasion, sat 
down with the express intention of writing a 
moving sermon, but that there had come into 
his head instead, whence he could not tell, a 
screamingly-funny idea for a farcical story, — I 
could not help saying to myself : “ If this man’s 
sermons be attributable, as he says, to some- 
thing outside himself, and were “ given him,” 
was not the farcical story — seeing that it was 
not there before — derived from the same 
source ? ” 

After that I gave up thinking about the sub- 
ject of present day “ inspiration,” and the 
knowledge that the source of inspiration of the 
one and only “inspired” work I ever did was, 
like the best work of other men infinitely greater 
than I, — whisky, has not encouraged me to 
re-open the question. 


Chapter VI. 


A DISGRACEFUL INCIDENT. 

S soon as I had finished the article I took 



IV it to the editor, and waited while he read 
the MS. He was delighted with it, assuring 
me that it was bound to score immensely ; and 


when I left his office my brain was — what with 


want of sleep, whisky, and gratified vanity — in 
a whirl. My wisest plan would have been to 
go home and to bed, but I was engaged to dine 
at Colonel Frazer s that evening, and did not 
feel inclined to forego the triumph and lionizing 
to which I considered myself entitled. Recent 
events, too, had made me feel that, much as I 
loved his daughter, I was doing him and his 
family an honour in wishing to become his son- 
in-law ; and that it was time he should be made 
to realize this. As a matter of fact his name 
had recalled an incident to my mdnd, the recol- 


148 


A LITEJ^ARY GENT. 


149 


lection of which had rudely dispelled the pleas- 
ant thoughts which the flattery I had received 
had awakened. I had almost forgotten that he 
had once ventured to lecture me — me, about 
whom every one was now talking, and who was 
welcomed as an honoured guest in some of the 
best houses in London, — as though I had been 
a badly-behaved schoolboy ; but as, in my ex- 
cited state of mind, I recalled the circumstances, 
my vanity took fire afresh, and what was in 
reality a closed incident, assumed the appear- 
ance of a recent insult. My brain was already 
inflamed with whisky and egotism ; and as the 
more I brooded over the matter, the more in- 
dignant I became, I worked myself at last to 
such a pitch of excitement that when I went 
home to dress for dinner, I had to nerve myself 
with neat brandy before my hand was steady 
enough for me to shave myself. As a rule I 
rarely touched brandy, but I felt on this occa- 
sion that in view of the mental strain to which 
I had been subjected during the twenty-four 


150 


A LITERARY GENT. 


hours which had just passed, something in the 
way of stimulant was absolutely necessary. Of 
what happened on that eventful evening, and 
at the dinner at Colonel Frazer’s, I have very 
little recollection. I have been told since that 
the tone I adopted to my host and his guests 
was either insolently arrogant or even more in- 
solently patronizing. I can recall Colonel 
Frazer’s putting forward some theory, which, 
though he was not addressing me at the time, 
I violently attacked ; and I remember that, 
galled by his contemptuous withdrawal from the 
conversation, and by the meaning looks which, 
rightly or wrongly, I fancied he was bending in 
my direction, I insulted him openly and grossly. 

I can just recall the moment of pained sur- 
prise and silence — it partly sobered me — which 
followed, and remember hearing some snatches 
of a courteous explanation, “young man of 
great ability,” “ most excitable brain,” “fear he 
has been working too hard,” which our host was 
making to his guests. My next recollection is 


A LITEJ^AJ^Y GENT. 


151 


that of standing in the open air, without a hat, 
and holding on to the arm of a friend and 
neighbour of mine who sat near me at dinner ; 
a hansom drove up ; we got in ; and I remem- 
ber no more. 


Chapter VII. 


Next Morning ” — I renounce the accursed cause of my misery. 


HERE is no mercy in the calm, cold eyes 



1 of Memory, as she stands by our bedside 
on the inevitable “next morning," waiting and 
watching for our waking, that she may show us 
our follies of the night before, as they look in 
the white and searching light of day. We have 
turned a page in the ledger of our lives, and 
the new day’s leaf lies white and fair before us, 
but there is a tiny pencilled line at the top ot 
the page which tells of the fatal figures which 
we have “ carried over" from the entries of the 
preceding day, and after one glance at that, the 
bright, white, unsullied beauty of the morning 
is bright and beautiful for us no more. I re- 
member that on the day following the scene at 
Colonel Frazer’s I was conscious, almost before 
I was awake, of a sense of imminent evil and 


152 


A LITERARY GENT 


153 


shame which lay upon my heart like lead ; and 
I had hardly opened my eyes before Memory 
had taken me by the throat, and was looking 
me in the face with pitiless and basilisk eyes, 
from which there was no escape. I need not 
here describe how bitterly I cursed my folly ; 
how I writhed and rocked, as if in bodily pain, 
and in a very agony of unavailing remorse, as 
I re-acted in imagination the shameful scene, 
and pictured to myself the disgust which my 
conduct must have aroused in the minds of all 
present. That I, I of all men in the world, 
should have drunk myself, like a pothouse sot, 
into such a state of bestiality as to be capable 
of grossly insulting a friend at his own table, 
and that friend my future father-in-law, seemed 
to me so monstrously and preposterously in- 
credible that I could scarcely believe the events 
of the preceding night were other than a hid- 
eous nightmare. 

Upon one course, I was at least, decided — 
that I would at once and forever renounce the 


154 


A LITERARY GENT. 


accursed thing which was the cause of my mis- 
ery ; and, hastily dressing, I sat down and wrote 
a note to Colonel Frazer, telling him of my 
shame and humiliation, and offering him the 
most ample and unconditional apology. Though 
I could not, I told him, ever forgive myself, I 
implored him for the sake of the love I bore his 
daughter, which I knew he was aware was sin- 
cere, to accept my solemn promise never to 
touch stimulants more. 

His reply was generous and manly. If what 
had happened, he said, should be the means of 
showing me the danger in which I stood, he for 
one, would never regret it. He accepted my 
apology unreservedly, and if, after a month’s 
time, I could come to him and tell him that my 
promise had been kept, he would allow me to 
resume my old footing in his family. He en- 
closed a short letter from Alice, in which, ex- 
cept for the fact that she said she had promised 
her father not to see me or communicate with 
me for a month, there was no allusion to what 


A LITERARY GENT. 


155 


had happened, or word of reproach. The let- 
ter was as loving, tender, and gentle as ever, 
and concluded with an assurance of love and 
faith, and of the joyfulness with which she was 
looking forward to the day of our meeting. 


Chaptfr VIII. 

In the toils — A terrible temptation. 

HE day passed by, and though I felt low 



1 and despondent, and in need, if only for 
medicinal reasons, of something in the nature 
of a stimulant, I touched nothing of the sort 
either at dinner or at lunch. In the evening I 
settled down to work at an article with which 

the editor of the had proposed I should 

follow up the paper which was making such a 
stir in his current number ; but midnight found 
me no nearer the accomplishment of my task 
than when I began. Try as I would, my slug- 
gish brain refused to formulate my thoughts in 
fitting words, and when at last the few ideas I 
had upon the subject were brought to birth, 
they had been so turned over and tumbled in 
the travail of my brain, that they had lost all 
freshness, and were, from the literary point of 


156 


A LITERARY GENT 


157 


view, almost worthless. All this while I had 
been conscious of an intense craving for stimu- 
lant, and I began to recognize for the first time 
and with uneasiness which was akin to fear, how 
necessary the use of wine and spirit had become 
to me. That the sudden and total cessation of 
a habit to which I had accustomed myself for 
years would require an effort on my part, and 
would leave me restless and unsettled, I had 
fully expected, but I could not have believed 
that the hold the thing had upon me was so fast. 
I felt, however, that I had reason to be thankful 
I had made the discovery thus early ; and now 
that I fully recognized the danger in which I 
stood, I determined to shake myself free, once 
and for all, from everything in the shape of 
drink. I passed a restless night, and awoke 
next morning feeling nervous and depressed, 
but strong in my resolution. Hoping to make 
up by redoubled exertion for the profitless 
labour of the night before, I settled down to 
my work immediately after breakfast ; but 


158 


A LITERARY GENT, 


though I tried to stimulate my brain by strong 
tea and coffee, in place of whiskey, what I 
wrote was so flabby and feeble that, when I 
read it over to myself in the afternoon, I thrust 
it impatiently into the fire. 

The experience of the next day, and of the 
four days following it, were of a similar nature, 
and, to add to my dismay, I discovered that the 
craving for drink, instead of decreasing as time 
went on, was becoming stronger and more con- 
tinuous. I found, too, that this craving was at 
no time so imperious as when I attempted to 
work. Just as surely as I took up a pen and 
sat waiting, with all my attention turned inward, 
to see what thought-pictures the magic lantern 
of my brain would cast upon the white disc ot 
consciousness, just as surely would the longing 
for the forbidden thing rise within me — now 
stealing over my senses like a subtle odour, 
soothing them to a soft deliciousness which 
wooed them to surrender, now enticing them 
by memories of past revelries, and always be- 


A LITERARY GENT 


159 


coming more and more irresistible. Whether 
it was that the mutinous body, ever at war with 
the restrictions placed upon it by the spirit, saw 
in these unguarded moments of inaction an 
opportunity to break out into open revolt ; or 
whether the attempt to stimulate the brain in- 
duced a proportionate stimulus of the senses, 
I cannot say, but the facts are as I have stated. 
Nor were signs wanting to show that my moral 
garrison was less loyal than I had supposed. 
“If you are really sincere in your wish to free 
yourself from the thing that has you in its 
power,” whispered a voice within me, “are you 
sure you are going the right way to work? 
Would it not be wiser to break off the habit 
gradually — reducing your allowance day by day, 
until it reaches vanishing point? Then your 
victory will be final and complete, for you will 
have conquered yourself, and killed, not merely 
put to flight, the enemy whom you have let 
into your citadel. And are you sure that you 
have sufficient strength of purpose to stand the 


160 


A LITERARY GENT. 


terrible strain you are placing upon yourself — 
and you must remember, before answering, 
that one failure now would be fatal ? ” 

Again and again such thoughts as these re- 
curred to me, until the confidence and courage 
with which, in the first flush of my resolution, I 
had regarded the struggle before me, began to 
ooze away, and I became not only anxious but 
terrified. The knowledge that seven days out 
of the ten in which I had promised to complete 
my paper had passed, without my having written 
anything to which I could put my signature, 
added immeasurably to my dismay ; for, next 
to my love for Alice, nothing lay so near my 
heart as my work. 

The eighth day found me no further advanced 
than before, and now my misery amounted 
almost to madness, for it seemed to me as if 
ruin and disgrace were on every side staring 
me in the face. To have resource to stimulant 
again would not only necessitate the breaking 
of my solemn promise to Colonel Frazer, and 


A LITERAJiY GENT. 


161 


the consequent loss of Alice, but, in view of 
the terrible hold which drink already had upon 
me, would mean mental and moral suicide. 
And yet I could no longer disguise the fact 
that the many years during which I had accus- 
tom-ed myself to working upon whisky had 
rendered me so dependent upon the aid of 
stimulant, that without something of the sort, I 
was absolutely incapable of doing the work upon 
which I depended for my livelihood. The thing 
which had been my slave had now become my 
master, and had me at its mercy. I was like a 
man, who, having found a pretty, purring, soft- 
furred creature in a forest, carries it to his home, 
where he fondles and feeds it, teaching it to 
come and go at his call, until one night he 
awakens to feel a tiger’s fangs at his throat, 
and his life-blood draining away beneath its 
cruel clutching claws. 

In my misery and despair, I did what I had 
not done since I was a child — fell on my knees 
and prayed. “Help me, O God ! ” I cried, “ if 


162 


A LITERARY GENT, 


Thou art, indeed, the God of the helpless. 
Thou knowest my love for Alice. Thou 
knowest my love for my work, and Thou seest 
the temptations wherewith I am surrounnded. 

I must be true to her, and true to my better, 
my best, self. Help me, then, to do my work, 
and help me to fight against the foul thing which 
seeks to destroy me ; and give me the victory. 
Amen.” 

Somewhat comforted in a vague way, I' rose 
and tried to settle to my work, but the unwonted 
act of prayer had recalled old memories of the 
mother I had lost in my childhood. She was a 
Catholic, and had taught me, as a little lad, to 
cross myself at the words, “ And deliver us 
from evil,” in the Lord’s Prayer, telling me of 
the terror with which this sign was regarded by 
the powers of darkness — how Satan was re- 
corded to have fled screaming at the sight of it, 
and how witchcraft and sorcery had, by the 
same holy symbol, made in the Name of the 
Trinity, been brought to nought. As all this 


A LITERARY GENT 


163 


was corroborated by a mediaeval romance I had 
once read and been much interested in, it had 
greatly impressed me, and I had for years fol- 
lowed the habit my mother had taught me, of 
making the sign of the Cross when in the pres- 
ence of death or danger, or when tempted to 
do anything wrong. The reader will, perhaps, 
smile when I tell him that in the utter misery 
and despair of my struggle against the terrible 
temptations which beset me, this old, almost 
forgotten habit of my childhood recurred to me. 
Whenever the first symptoms of the craving for 
drink came upon me, I hastily made the sign of 
the Cross upon my breast or in the air, just as 
I had done in my childish days, when it had 
seemed to me that every evil thought or sug- 
gestion which entered my mind was whispered 
in my ear by the devil, whom I thus hoped to 
exorcise and drive away. 

Early faiths die hard. I recollect seeing the 
son of a professing atheist fall before his father’s 
eyes from the top of a high scaffold, and I re- 


164 


A LITERARY GENT 


member that the cry of agony which rose to the 
fathers’ lips was not “ My son ! ” but “ My 
God ! ” 

Once more I knelt and prayed, and this time 
jt seemed as if help had verily and indeed come, 
for when I arose my brain was clear and com- 
posed, and what I wrote was at all events more 
passable than anything I had penned for the 
last five days. I worked on steadily the whole 
afternoon and evening, and by the aid of strong 
tea, I managed to complete my paper in time 
for the midnight post. 

The next afternoon it was returned with a 
note from the editor, asking what had come to 
me that I had sent him such feeble stuff. To 
publish it would, he said, bring only ridicule 
upon us both ; and he warned me that I had 
reached a critical point in my career, and that 
if I valued my reputation I should immediately 
set to work and rewrite the paper. “I can’t 
leave it out now,” he added, in conclusion, 
“ for the thing has been announced, and will be 


A LITERARY GENT 


165 


looked for. I can give you three days more, 
although I shall have to delay the publication of" 
the Review ; but for both our sakes, man, pull 
yourself together, and rise to the occasion, no 
matter what the cost! ” 


Chapter IX. 


“ Only this once ! ” 

J FELT as I read his letter that Fate had 
taken the thing out of my hand, and decided 
for me.' One course only remained open. 
“ For this once, and this once only,” I said to 
myself, “ I must break my promise to Colonel 
Frazer — or rather let me call it fiot the breaking 
of my promise, but merely the postponement of 
the day when that promise comes into force. 
The .paper, now that the thing has gone thus 
far, must, as he says, be done in my old style 
and in my best form, no matter what the cost. 
After that I need be in no hurry to publish any- 
thing else until my brain has accustomed itself 
to working without stimulant ! ” 

.Determined to lose no further time, I sent 
out for whisky, and set to work. In two days 
I had finished the paper to my own satisfaction 


A LITERAL V GENT. 


167 


and to. the editor’s, and on the third I awoke to 
start the new life which I was now determined 
to lead. About the result I had no anxiety. 
“ The fact of my having abstained for so many 
days is sufficient proof, if any were needed,” I 
said to myself, “of my ability to abstain al- 
together, I could have continued to abstain 
then, and should undoubtedly have done so, 
but for the exceptional circumstances of my 
having to rewrite that article to time — circum- 
stances which are never likely to occur again, 
•for I shall not accept any other important com- 
mission until I have grown accustomed, as I 
soon shall, to working without whisky ; and 
when I have so accustomed myself, I hope and 
believe that I shall do stronger and better work 
without the aid of stimulants than I ever did 
with them.” I was so sanguine and self-confi- 
dent, indeed, that I was half-inclined to ask 
myself if my promise to Colonel Frazer had not 
been a little unnecessary, and if I should not 
have done better to have dropped the habit of 


168 


A LITERARY GENT. 


drinking — as he was so fussily set upon it — by 
slow degrees, and without making such an un- 
called for “to-do” as was necessitated by a 
sudden discontinuance. In fact, I began to feel 
— under the reaction from the strain which I 
had put upon myself while wrestling with the 
temptation to drink — as if, like Don Quixote, I 
had been fighting wind-mills, and as if no temp- 
tation, except that which was created by my 
own hysterical and overwrought imagination, 
had ever existed. I recalled the experiment 
which had once been made — I think in Russia 
— by permission of the authorities, and in the 
interests of science, upon two criminals under 
sentence of death. One of them was put to 
sleep in a room in which a woman had died the 
night before of Asiatic cholera. He was, how- 
ever, left in blissful ignoranae of the danger to 
which he was exposed, and took no harm 
whatever. The other was made to sleep in a 
room which had been unoccupied for months, 
but he was falsely told that the corpse of a 


A LITERARY GENT. 


169 


victim to cholera had only just been removed 
from it. His terror was so great that it ab- 
solutely created the disease which he feared, 
for, in a few hours, he developed symptoms of 
cholera, and died before the night was out. 

Just so, I told myself, had I let my terror and 
panic create a danger, where danger there was 
none before ; and lulled into a false security, I did 
what I had never dared to do since the day 
when I had determined to break free from the 
influence of drink — I gave free rein to my 
thoughts and let them wander forth to dally 
with the enemy I had believed so deadly. 
Scarcely had I allowed my mind to toy for a 
few minutes with the temptation, before the 
craving for stimulants was upon me again — 
at first a mere suggestion, so insidious and 
pleading as hardly to need a thought, but which 
I had barely recognised for what it was before 
it had ceased to dissemble, and was openly urg- 
ing its claims ; and soon the suitor had become 
the sovereign, and I who had been the master 


170 


A LITERARY GENT 


became the slave, until at last the thing domi- 
nated me, so that my body seemed like the 
bars of a cage which shut in a wild beast, mad 
with an insatiable thirst. My first impulse, 
when I recognised my danger, was to leap to 
my feet, with the unreasoning fear of the 
hunted creature upon me, and with an un- 
governable impulse to seek refuge in flight, as 
if from a bodily foe. But this lust was some- 
thing more than a thirst ; it was something 
more even than a physical craving ; it was 
something within me ; a something which I 
must carry with me wherever I went, and from 
which it were as vain to seek escape by flight 
as it would be for the wounded stag to flee 
from the death-dealing arrow which is lodged 
in its breast. 

Just as a drunken man is pushed and shoved 
— an unwilling prisoner — towards the police 
station, so invisible hands seemed to push 
me towards the door, as if to impel me in the 
direction of the nearest place where drink was 


A LITERAJ^Y GENT. 


171 


to be obtained. I took a step forward as if 
yielding, but all which was noblest in my nature, 
all the better feelings which, like sleepless 
sentinels during a siege, had kept unwinking 
watch and ward with me for so many days, 
sprang up to sound a wild alarm, and to call 
upon me in the name of the woman I loved to 
be true to myself and to my resolution. And 
just as the drunken man, when he finds himself 
overpowered by those who have taken him 
prisoner, drops to the ground in order that he 
may resist by the dead weight of his own in- 
ertia the efforts which are being made to get 
him to the station, so at that cry I let my limbs 
slip from under me, lest they should be com- 
pelled to carry me, against my will, to the goal 
from which my soul recoiled. But the drink- 
devil which possessed me was not thus to be 
driven out or conquered, for even as I lay, I 
felt the foul thing stirring again within me, and 
gathering itself together for a final effort ; and 
I knew that the supreme struggle of my life had 


172 


A LITERARY GENT. 


come. In another minute I was wrestling with 
it as a man wrestles for life and death with the 
python which has him in its coils. I lay writh- 
ing and twisting, and foaming at the mouth like 
one in an epilectic fit, and fighting for my soul 
with the fiend which possessed me, as the epi- 
leptic fights for life with his disease. But like 
the incoming of an irresistible sea, the desire 
for drink swept over me, and possessed me, 
until / became no longer a many but A LUST. 

In my despair I rose to my feet, and as I did 
so, my hands played the traitor, and — less in- 
dependently of myself, than in spite of myself 
— stretched out mechanically to open the door, 
and telling myself that even surrender and de- 
feat, recognised as such, would be more endur- 
able than the agonising suspense of such 
resistance ; and dismissing, in the very dogged- 
ness of despair, every thought which could bring 
remorse or uneasiness, I stole out of the house 
like a guilty thing, but with a heart beating 
with a secret and savage joy. 


A LITERARY GENT 


173 


And that night I was brought home from the 
club dead-drunk ; and in the morning I received 
a letter from Colonel Frazer, telling me that he 
had heard of what had happened, and that I 
must consider everything between Alice and 
myself at an end. 


Chapter X. 


Seventeen years after. 

M ine is not a pleasant story, and though 
I have found it necessary to dwell in 
detail upon certain incidents which though ap- 
parently trivial, are not so when considered as 
links in the inevitable sequence which con- 
nects what is to be, with what is, and what is, 
with what has been, there is much in my history 
which I must leave the reader to fill in for him- 
self. Every one of intelligence who knows as 
much of a man’s character as all who have 
followed this narrative thus far know already of 
mine, and who is given certain constitutional 
tendencies in conjunction with certain circum- 
stances, could in ninety-nine cases out of a 
hundred predict the logical results. I shall 
therefore pass over in silence the seventeen 
years that intervened between the events just 


174 


A. LI TER ARY GENT 


175 


described and the present time. Of my life 
as it is now, I need only say that I live upon 
the few shillings I earn by translating into 
English, for a half-penny weekly, the jokes con- 
tained in certain coarse comic French and 
German journals. Sometimes I make ten, 
sometimes eleven shillings a week — enough to 
procure me shelter for my head, and to find me 
in sufficient brandy to keep body and soul to- 
gether. Now and then, when I can get enough 
brandy to set my brain working, I am so for- 
tunate as to write something for which I receive 
better pay, and then I get — more brandy. 
Such a stroke of luck happened to me lately, 
for the post brought me, a day or two ago, an 
order for fifteen shillings ; and though a cold 
sleet was falling, and the street was an inch 
deep in befouled snow, I started off at once to 
cash it. I was all right when I came out of the 
corner public-house, for if half a bottle of neat 
brandy won’t put heart into a man, nothing will ; 
and I should have reached home comfortably 


176 


A LITERARY GENT, 


enough, if it hadn’t been that half-a-dozen boys 
— God strike them dead ! — set up a yell when 
they caught sight of me, and began pelting me 
with snow-balls as fast as they could throw. If 
I could only have got my hand on one of them. 
I’d have twisted his damned neck for him, but 
it’s as much as I can do to hobble now, and I 
could neither catch them nor get away. They 
drove me into a corner at last, where I huddled 
up, trying to shield my face from the rain of 
kneaded and hardened snowballs which came 
so fast and furiously that I was wet to the skin 
and screamed with pain and cold. In sheer 
despair, I turned upon my persecutors, and, 
foaming at the mouth with impotent rage, called 
God to witness that if there was justice in the 
land I’d have the law on them and on the 
skulking scoundrels who stood by laughing and 
jeering and egging the young devils on. A 
howl of derision, accompanied by a thicker 
shower of the cruel missiles, was the only an- 
swer ; and then a snowball with a jagged piece 


A LITERARY GENT 


177 


of flint embedded in it hit me in the mouth. 
As I fell to the ground, with the blood stream- 
ing down my face and clothes, a woman ran out 
from an adjoining house to my assistance. She 
helped me to my feet, and while I was holding 
shakily to her shoulder, for I could not stand 
by myself, she turned upon the bystanders ( the 
boys had made off on her appearance), asking 
them indignantly if there was an Englishman 
among them, that they could stand by, jeering, 
while an old and defenceless man was thus set 
upon by a cowardly mob. As she did so, I saw 
her face, and recognized — it sounds like a 
novel, or a Sunday-school story, doesn’t it ? — 
Alice! I had been told that, after the break 
with me, she had refused more than one offer 
of marriage, and had gone to live and work 
among the poor in East London. I had heard, 
too, that she had lost all her good looks, and 
that such was the case I saw at a glance, for 
but for her voice, which was unchanged, I 
should not have been sure it was she. 


178 


A LITERARY GENT 


It was a striking “situation/’ wasn’t it? 
And what a catching scene it would make for a 
teetotal tract of the “ look on this picture and 
on that” type — the meeting between the de- 
graded, drink-sodden and ragged creature (I 
am rather a scarecrow, I know) and the woman 
whose lover he had once been ! 

I suppose the right thing for me to have 
done under the circumstances would have been 
to tell her that I wasn’t fit for such as she to 
touch — to have snivelled and talked pious, and 
cried out after my “lost youth.” 

Do you think I did so? No; when she 
recognised me and called me my old pet name 
I turned on her and cursed her to hell for her 
interference, telling her to take her yellow 
monkey face out of my sight before I struck 
her. 


Chapter XL 


A LAST WORD. 


XD now one word, please, before I close. 



Some of you who read this may be inclined 
to pity me; to snuffle and grow sentimental about 
my “wasted opportunities ” and “ shipwrecked 
life.” It is possible, even, that some of you 
may recognise my identity, and affect a pitying 
pain at the thought of the wretched and de- 
graded creature who started life with such 
promise. But you may spare me and yourself 
your pity, for I do not need it, and I will have 
none of it — do you mark me? — I will have 
none of it. Keep it for some more “ deserving 
object,” as you would say ; one who would not 
as I would were it offered me, spit and spurn it 
back into your face with curses and blows. 
You are over-generous and gratuitous with 
your pity, you pious folks, sometimes — attribu- 


179 


180 


A LITERARY GENT 


ting to the objects of your compassion sensibili- 
ties and sufferings which do not exist. For, 
listen ! the drunkard has no friend ; he needs 
NONE, except the one friend which is more to 
him than is your Christ to the Christian ; the 
friend which is at once wife and child, father 
and mother, sister and brother, and — God ! 

I have written out for you the story of my 
life ; but I have not told you my reason for 
doing this. I will do so, lest any of you should 
think me one of those abject wretches who, 
from the condemned cell, or the dishonored 
deathbed, send out maudlin messages about the 
warning to be derived from their “ awful ex- 
ample.” I’m not that sort, thank God ! and I 
wouldn’t lift a finger to save one of my fellow 
sinners from going the road that I have gone. 
Let them go to hell, say I, and be damned to 
them ; the hell that I’m bound for, and that 
many a better fellow than I has gone to, and 
will go to yet. No, I have only one reason 
for writing this story. Can you not guess it ? 


A LITERACY GENT, 


181 


It is that I may sell it, as Fd sell my immortal 
soul were I able — for money to buy more 
drink. 



• • 

^ - •• j ' 


.. <* : • V' • (f ' ^ 

^ . . ■ • • : 

^•' ..‘■V*', •<'■-.*'■ •.- »■ '■•.,*•' .« . -. 1. ' ■•.■■ 

/'-vV '-V ' r" ' r ’ .^' ■ ' " V 

■XS-ZAl ■ V 'V’ ii2* >■■';■»• / ■- -' ■: 



, 




A LOST SOUL, 


\ 

* 


l 


% 

r 




p 


\ \ 


S 


f 





.^, '- * . ; ' - --W' ' .•*■'• •* •'/ ' 

i%"\- 'iV-*-' '<^ -■ ■ . k. - ^ 

1 >\.T - ^‘■''**’ V >- ‘ 




:.V 


faiSa/ 'V*' ► jT/y » - i *- i '. w * ^ -• — * / 




X't*^ . 


-^-'r •:' V> 


\ •? 


0 



X- 

• • ». 


'-^c s- 'f-'^' •' ' y- 


.1 V 


•; t 

> ' ^ • V L, 

fm » 

■*' '•J 

^ ^ ••• ■ 


; 

* *♦ - V* > - ^ 

4 • ~ m ' 


,1- 



• - * ^ * 

' i - <*• . 


. • 


S ’ 






-v.*.» '-m • t . . . ^ ' ‘ » 

k ; V.^'V^* ' * ' 'k ^ \ . > * >' • 

'"< -••?:“nA. \s' "'•'’v • ■ / 'Z**' ’’ “* ', ' * 

s>-'?.y • .r;<- .' .'< .\- V 

-, ' > ' ' • ' ' * f — 

;Pr/ . .“ .. * A -» / 4 ^ • V.- '* . , 

*': -•' J-.i^ -.jw' T. • . - 1 *v . J ^ /• .•« • ‘ '■» ■/*- • 


.'I-'- r ’ v-r;-^ 
rsT- ■.'.- 


y 

•'L.. ■«• 


•V- V .-:.•• 

y .’ 1 ,. * ^ 

• ■ -i'*^ ; » ' 

i r 

K' • f-'> y •' "• 






A LOST SOUL. 


WOMAN, who was very fair, lay with 



her new-born babe at her bosom. And 
as she lay, a Spirit, clad in shining robes, ap- 
peared unto her, saying: “Look, that thou 
mayest behold the Birth of a Soul ! 

Then the woman looked, and saw, as through 
a silver mist, a realm — whether far-off or near, 
she knew not — over which there rested a light 
as serene as that of moonlight softened by 
clouds. 

And many forms she saw therein, among 
which was one that was like unto her own babe ; 
and, turning to the Spirit, she said : “ What 

place is this ? and whose is yonder child ? 

And the Spirit made answer : “ The place 

which thou seest is the Abode of Souls, and the 
child is the soul of thine own babe.’' 


185 


186 


A LOST SOUL. 


Then the woman laughed, saying, “ That may 
not be, seeing that my child is alive, and lies 
even now upon my bosom ; and it were more 
easy for thee to persuade me that the thing 
which I behold is my own soul, than that it is 
the soul of my child ! ” 

And the Spirit said : “ What, then, is the 

thing which thou callest thy ‘ soul ’ ? ” 

But the woman made answer, “ I cannot tell.” 

Then said the Spirit: “Whenever a human 
being is born into the world, there is born in 
the Abode of Souls that human being’s spiritual 
counterpart, Thy soul abidest there, as does 
the soul of every other human creature ; and as 
is the growth of thy body on earth, so is the 
growth of thy soul in the Abode of Souls, the 
one keeping pace with the other.” 

And the woman said : “ Myself is where my 
body is, and there only ; and if, as thou sayest, 
there is elsewhere another self which thou callest 
my ‘soul,’ then is that other self not truly I.” 


A LOST SOUL. 


187 


But the Spirit made answer : “ Thy soul is 
more truly thyself than thou art, for thy soul is 
what thou really art, but the thing which I see 
before me, which thou callest thyself is but what 
thou seemest to be. And though thy outward 
and bodily self be white and fair, yet if thine 
inner and real self be evil and unclean, then will 
thy soul be evil and unclean to look upon, so 
that thou shalt be known even as thou art. 
The thing which thou didst in public, calling 
upon all men to witness, shall not be more 
manifest than the thing which thou didst steal 
away in secret to commit. Thou didst double- 
lock thy chamber-door, that none might see 
thee, but I tell thee that every deed thou doest 
in the body — nay, not only every deed which 
thou doest, but the most secret thought of thine 
inmost heart, — is recorded upon the face of thy 
soul, and cannot be hid.” 

Then said the woman : “ Why tellest thou me 
these things ? Are my sins greater than the 
sins of others, that thou speakest thus ? Are 


188 


A LOST SOUL. 


there not murderers and adulterers, thieves and 
Sabbath-breakers enough, that thou comest to 
me, who am none of these ? My sins, which 
are not many, I have long since repented, and 
lo ! thou revilest me, as if I were the chief of 
sinners ! ” 

Then said the Spirit : ‘Tf thou hast truly re- 
pented of all thy sins, then is it well with thee 
indeed ! ” 

“I look back upon thy past life, and I see it 
lying behind thee like a river — at first broad 
and bold to gaze upon, but narrowing as it winds 
away past mountain and plain and scenes thou 
hast long since forgotten, until at last it becomes 
but a line, and loses itself in the misty meadows 
of childhood. But, as I look, I see, lying upon 
the banks thereof, the unburied corpses of many 
a strangled hope and murdered aspiration for 
which thou wilt one day be called upon to an- 
swer. And other and darker forms, too, I see, 
which tell of evil deeds, of which thou canst 
surely never think save with sorrow and shame. 


A LOST SOUL. 


189 


“ But for every sin which thou has remem- 
bered and repented, there are myriads which 
thou hast forgotten. Dost thou think that be- 
cause the very memory of them has passed 
from thy mind, so that they have become to thee 
as though they had never been, that for this 
reason they are not? 

“ I tell thee that in"the day wherein thou shalt 
look upon thine own soul, be it fair or foul, and 
see it in all its nakedness — the day which men 
speak of as the ‘ Day of Judgment,’ thou shalt 
see the least of these unremembered, unre- 
pented sins, writ large upon the face of thy 
soul.” 

“ But — answer me, ere I go from thee : Is 
there any one under thy roof or among the 
human beings, whose lives thou art able, for 
good or for evil, to influence, upon whose soul 
thou dost seek to look? ” 

And the woman made answer : “ The souls 
of all who are under my roof, I know, and need 
not to see ; but one there is, my neighbour. 


190 


A LOST SOUL. 


who is ''Very fair, and concerning whom I am 
curious. Show me, then, her soul, that I may 
learn whether what men say of her be true or 
untrue.” 

But the Spirit said : “ God hath not revealed 
unto thee a vision of souls that so thou mayst 
gratify an idle curiosity, but that thou mayest 
realize thy responsibilities and profit thereby. 

“ And dost thou indeed think that thou know- 
est the souls of all them that dwell under thy 
roof, or that there is anyone on earth, who 
knoweth even his own soul, as it is in the sight 
of God? 

“The heart of man resembles a secret cham- 
ber wherein stands — like the block of white 
unhewn marble, set in the studio of a sculptor 
a veiled figure. Though the man may not so 
much as lift the corner of the veil, yet must he 
forever and in secret work to fashion and to 
form the figure that lies beneath. 

“ And the figure is the Soul of the man, and 
the unveiling thereof is called death ; and until 


A LOST SOUL. 


191 


the figure be unveiled, the man scarce knoweth 
what manner of man he is. 

“And I tell thee that so far from knowing the 
souls of all them who dwell under thy roof, 
there are some among thy nearest and dearest 
into the secret places of whose heart thou hast 
never looked, and of whose real self thou 
knowest scarce more than thou knowest of the 
stranger in the street. 

“Is there no speck in thine own heart, or in 
thine own past, which thou wouldst wish that 
the husband, whose soul thou countest one with 
thine, should see with thy eyes, rather than with 
his, and which thou wouldst not hesitate to re- 
veal in all its nakedness ? And dost thou think 
thou knowest him better than he knoweth 
thee ? ” 

“The very child whom tor many years thou 
didst scarce venture to let out of thy sight, that 
so thou mightest keep him from knowledge of 
evil, and whose innocent face thou didst kiss 
this morning, hugging thyself in thy heart that 


192 


A LOST SOUL. 


thou wast secure of his confidence and love — 
dost thou know that that child has already a 
life apart from thee — that he lives in a world 
which is created for him, less by thy teaching 
than by the talk of his companions — and that 
so far from scarce realizing, as thou dreamest, 
the existence of evil, it may be that he is al- 
ready old in the knowledge of sin ? ” 

The Spirit ceased, and through the silver 
mist that veiled the Abode of Souls, the woman 
saw many forms pass to and fro. Some were 
fair to look upon, and some were foul ; and 
others were neither fair nor foul ; and some few 
she saw which she recognized readily, inasmuch 
as they differed but little from the selves which 
she knew. 

Then said the Spirit : “Hast thou aught to 
ask about any of these ? ” 

And, pointing with her finger, the woman 
made answer : “ One form I see which troubles 
me, and which I seem to know, and yet know 
not. Tell me, then, whose soul it may be.” 


A LOST SOUL, 


193 


And the Spirit said : “Thy father’s.” 

But the woman laughed, saying : “ My father’s 
face is wrinkled, and his form feeble and bent, 
but yonder figure is straight and lusty as a 
sapling, and the face thereof hath the bloom 
and the beauty of youth.” 

And the Spirit made answer: “The face of 
thy father is wrinkled, and his form feeble and 
old, but years have not hardened his heart, nor 
aged his soul, and therefore dost thou see 
him young and fair in the Abode of Souls.” 

And as the woman turned again to look into 
the Abode of Souls, there arose before her the 
form of a beautiful girl, who gazed upon her 
with eyes full of pity and love. 

And the Spirit spake to the woman, saying : 
“ Behold ! the soul of thy sister.” 

But the woman made answer : “ The face of 
my sister is as ill-favoured as mine is fair, and 
yonder girl is more beautiful than I.” 

And the Spirit said : “ Dost thou think be- 
cause God hath chosen to make thee fair of 


194 


A LOST SOUL. 


face, and thy sister ill-favoured, that thou shalt 
be fair and she ill-favoured to all eternity ? ” 

And as the woman, much wondering, turned 
from him to gaze again upon the Abode of 
Souls, another face rose up before her, upon 
which she could not but look. 

It was the face of one who had once been 
fair ; but as the woman looked upon it, she 
saw something written thereon, which repelled 
her more than did the faces she had seen that 
were low and animal. No sensual vice had 
loosened the lip, bleared the eye, or bloated 
the complexion ; but meanness had set its mark 
upon the mouth and pinched the nostrils ; and 
sordid, respectable self-seeking and self- 
righteousness had made hard the heart, and 
deadened the spiritual nature more surely than 
vice or ^in ; so that the woman felt, as she 
looked, that she was gazing upon the face of 
one who was lower in the scale of being and 
farther from the Kingdom of God, than are the 


A LOST SOUL. 


195 


wretched creatures whom this world calls 
‘ fallen ’ or ‘ lost.’ 

And turning to the Spirit, she said : “ Who 

art thou ? and what i^ yonder evil shape ? ” 

And the Spirit replied : “I am the Angel of 
Death and Judgment, and the thing which thou 
beholdest is thyself, and the soul which thou 
hast made.” 

Then, laughing scornfully, the woman made 
answer : “By this I know that thou are a lying 
Spirit, whom I need neither fear nor heed : for 
behold ! I have but dreamed a dream ! ” 

And the Spirit replied: “Thou has indeed 
dreamed a dream, but the 7tame of that Dream 
was Life, and now thou dr earnest no longer!' 


-*•. “• 'i.- ^ •• . r . . / . - . ^ rry-i“ * . 

: :k^ -■ V’T- k kf^- . t:fi V* ^ 


fj--^ 


■tr- ' 

X . :/ J . '"X^. . . . V-V', . - 

’T^’r~ . * '*’".* 

r '^T f ' •' '* * ** • ■ ■ t 

s ; • 

V7 ■ v ' "T.?' -i h V 


Xj A 


u. 

% t 






yy\/. • ^ r ^ ^ '• ^ .*. - ' •. ••■' ^ -<A^T 7 . •,.*. fc' >- 

* '-‘-^ 1 *'. ■ ’^ • . .. rv ^ ' V'*' * S ' 


^ .• : •• ‘> - ■ *:■• 'v'A-'-%' ir I /.';■> : r . . ■; ■• 

^ '• •■■ •• ■';•■ . • ', ‘ -x ‘"'i' ■- 

— j»-^ *, ■'* - . ' % - - 




*«--• • *1 • ' «V ■ •-■w 

*4 ' k ^ ' . ^ ' 

,-.• “r /.* -•/ ■• .*• ' '' 

, ^ ^ f In*** 

^ i ' ***• » 

<7 ,v •,';■•><-?’•*'- .- .ji*- .-'•< ^ '•X 

' \ . ■ iV ^ \ - ‘ V ■ . 


• . - ;.• . . ^r 4^0* Zm 

V-V.'CN V 

* > - _v 

. : ‘ r . w-ffe- v^- . -- 

'^v 


.-ivjT ^*7 


It ^ 


. w s y ? . ■ , i 




• ^ 


MA 




Wc ^ 


V -- ^v-. "- > -t V ■ '';r,^* 


I ' 


r . ^ 


.*•% ■ 




► # - 


K>''' ■■' '•-■ ■- ■-■ 

► • ■ ■iT • •* r ^ . . I • 

As -„„■. V v'. -:.i.‘ V. ' . ;',^;y.f r. V 

: •• . . . ^ ^ ->■ ' . 


* i 









'-r . 





W .f^ ‘ ^ ^ ’ 

sp' ‘ p-' p - ■ ■- - .-^'..p.U'-^. v's^ • 

■' ''. ' ; 

— . ;' \ . 'i y V >* V { 


■ •/ 





■ ’ ' ■•■* ■ : 'I "i 


J*' *« 'l 


f 


/. 


V^' 

,-*, -»■; 0 r 


* *» 



> ^ 


I* «. 


' \ - • ’ ^: ' • '? Ifc, -^. - • ,• i' ■» ^ . ^, • ^ ' -f^ .V' vi ’ "V '■ 

x-^> •;.^ ^ .- .p:. r..V)?.-y;iAj.^^raai 




By the same author. 


A 'DEAD MA/N’S DIAKg. 

By CouLsoN Kernahan. 

Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo., Cloth ^i.oo. 


SOME PRESS opinions: 

Mrs. LOUISE CHANDI.ER MOULTON, in the Boston “Herald.”— 
“ The strongest and most terrible sermon I can remember. It would be impos- 
sible for any one to read it carelessly or think lightly of it. I can recall no pic- 
ture of hell that has ever seemed to me quite so appalling as this one. Fire and 
brimstone are nothing compared to its exquisite spiritual tortures." 

Mr. J. M. BARRIE, in “The British Weekly.” — “The vigor of this book 
is great, and the anonymous author has an uncommon gift of intensity. On 
many readers, it may be guessed, the book will have a mesmeric effect." 

“The Christian Union” (N. Y.) — “ Strong and beautiful is ‘A Dead Man's 
Diary.' The spiritual vision is lofty, and the moral tone sweet and pure 
throughout. Very vivid and terrible is the chapter on ‘ The dead who die.' " 

“ Lippincott’s Magazine.” — “ In the powerful book before us we are taken into 
hell and given a terrible and realistic idea of its torments. . . . Written with 

great power and so realistic are the descriptions that the reader is haunted by 
the idea that the author must really have been through the experiences he de- 
scribes." 

“ Daily Telegraph.” — “ Great reverence and much literary power." 

“ Evening News.” — “ The self-revelations are those of a man of culture, if not 
of genius. . . . It is an awful book ; and either callous or brainless must 

the man or woman be who can rise from its perusal without tumultuous and 
chastening thought." 

.“Review of Reviews.” — “Intensely interesting and exceedingly well written." 
“ One of the most succeesful books of the last two years." 

“ Globe.” — “ A brilliant success.” 

“ Daily Chronicle.” — “ Very remarkable and beautiful." 

“ The Rock.” — “ Indefinitely widens one's outlook, multiplies possibilities, and 
adds cubits to the stature of some." 

“Methodist Recorder.” — “The anonymous author has a poet's soul, and his 
beauty of expression is resistless." 

“Christian World.” — “Wrought up to an almost unendurable pitch of interest." 

“ Public Opinion.” — “ Fascinating, picturesque, and powerful." 


WARD, LOCK & BOWDEN (Limited), 

15 East i2th Street, New York. 


Lg-RA ELEGAMTIAHUM: 

A Collection of the best Social Verse. 

EDITED BY 

Frederick Locker- Lampson, assisted by Coulson Kernahan. 

In Half Morocco or Half Calf, ^1.75. In Cloth, 75c. - 


Mr. A. C. SWINBURNE, in “The Forum.” — “There is no better or com- 
pleter anthology in the language. I doubt, indeed, if there be any so good or 
so complete. No objection or suggestion which can reasonably be offered can 
in any way diminish our obligation, either to the original editor, or to his evi- 
dently able assistant, Mr. Kernahan. 

“ A radiant and harmonious gallery of song." 

“ Were but this (the concluding poem) swept away, the close of a beautiful 
volume would be beautiful and appropriate beyond all praise or thanks." 

Mr. EDMUND GOSSE, in “The Illustrated London News.” — “Where so 
many skilful hands have tried to produce rival anthologies, these two, each in its 
own class, preserve their unquestionable superiority. . . . Mr. Locker- 

Lampson has been helped in this republication by Mr. Coulson Kernahan who 
has entered into the elegant spirit of the editor, and has continued his labours 
with taste and judgment." 

“The Times.” — “Deservedly popular. . . . Needs only a cordial word of 
welcome." 

“ The Athenaeum.” — “This charming collection is a favorite with all who like 
verse of that light and graceful kind in which Mr. Locker, to call him by his 
more familiar name, excels ; and its appearance in a cheap form is matter for 
congratulation." 

“The Spectator.” — “A volume so charming, and, in spite of the one or two 
microscopic faults we have pointed out, so perfect." 

“ The SpeakerjP — “ The book is the best of its kind in the language, and there- 
fori it needs no praise." 

“The Saturday Review.” — “Its merits have been too long established to need 
any further praise." | 

“ The Graphic.” — “ A volume every page of which is a delight." 

“ The Echo.” — “ It is the merest matter of fact to say that a real knowledge of 
these two volumes — the ‘ Treasury ' and the ‘ Lyra ' — is a liberal education in 
itself." 

“The National Observer.” — “The book is a book for every one to have, and 
which none but the unsalted of the earth will read without gratitude." 


WARD, LOCK & BOWDEN (Limited), 

15 East I2TH Street, New York. 



> 





> • 


- ♦f 







/ 





r 



• ' . 















■ « > 




X 


<<• 



« 





> 



» 


> 


t 







s 


% 

0* ^ 
« • 


'0 


* 




<1^ 




;r 

1 

« * ^ 









/ . ^ 





\ 


I 


«. 


V 


; V 


• -< 

» 


r 


v • 



% 

'* >* 



a> 


« « 


V • . 


« 






» 

» S4 





• • 




. V‘ 


<> 





V 








V' 




Kf 


ft. 


4 


V 





f 


f 


V 






\ 

# 




/ 


f- 

• N 


\ 


f, 


A 






t • ; 

«• 



V • 


* . 





4 


4-^ 


4 







AN INEXPENSIVE LIBRARY OF INDISPENSABLE BOOKS. 


THE MINEKVA UBRARY OF FAMOOS BOOKS. 

Edited by G. "r. BETTAIMY, IVl.A., B.So. 


An Illustrated Series of first-class books, averaging from 400 to 
600 pages, strongly and attractively bound in cloth, 

75 cts., half calf, $1.75. 

1. CHARLES DARWIN’S JOURNAL DURING THE VOYAGE OF H 

M. S. “BEAGLE” ROUND THE WORLD. 

2. THE INGOLDSBY LEGENDS. By It. H. Barham. 

3. THE BIBLE IN SPAIN : Journeys, Adventures and Imprisonments. By 

Gkorok Borrow. 

4. TRAVELS IN TROPICAL SOUTH AFRICA. By Francis Galton, 

F.ILS. 

5. THE BETROTHED LOVERS. (I PROMESSI SPOSI.) By Alessan- 

dro Manzoni. 

6. TRAVELS ON THE AMAZON AND RIO NEGRO. By Alfred 

ItusSKL Wallace, LL.i)., D.C.L. * 

7. THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF DR. ARNOLD,, of Rugby. By the 

late Dean Stanley. 

8. POE’S TALES OF ADVENTURE, MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION, 
g. COMEDIES BY MOLIERE. Newly translated bv Chas. Matthew, M.A. 

10. THE LIFE AND TIMES OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH. By John 

F0R.STKR. 

11. THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF MODERN EGYPTIANS. By 

Edward William Lama 

12. MEMOIRS OF LORD MELBOURNE. By William MacCullagh 

Torrens. 

13. VANITY FAIR. By William Makepeace Thackeray. 

14. DR. BARTH’S TRAVELS IN NORTH AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 

15. VICTOR HUGO ; SELECT POEMS AND TRAGEDIES. 

16. DARWIN’S CORAL REEFS, VOLCANIC ISLANDS, ETC 

17. LOCKHART’S LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS. Edited, with * Notes and 

Ai)pendices, by John II. Ingram. 

18. BARTH’S TRAVELS IN CENTRAL AFRICA. ( 2 d and concluding 

volume.) 

ig. LYRA ELEGANTIARUM : SOCIAL AND OCCASIONAL VERSE. 
Edited by Fredkhk K- Locker-Lampson. Revised and enlarged. 

20. CARLYLE’S SARTOR RESARTUS, HEROES AND HERO WOR- 

SHIP, and PAST AND PRESENT. 

21. BECKFORD’S “VATHEK” AND EUROPEAN TRAVELS. 

22. MACAULAY’S HISTORICAL AND LITERARY ESSAYS. 

23. THE LIFE OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. By Prof. C. D. Yonge. 

24. CARLYLE’S HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

25. THE LAND OF THE LION AND THE SUN; or, Modern Persia. By 

C. J. Wills, M.l). 

26. MARY BARTON. A Tale of Manchester Life. By Mrs. Gaskell. 

27. INGRAM’S LIFE, LETTERS AND OPINIONS OF EDGAR ALLEN 

POE. Bv .Tohn H. Ingram. With Portraits. 

28. SHIRLEY ; A Talc. Bv ('h vrlgttb Bronte. 

2g. HOOKER’S HIMALA'YAN JOURNALS. 

30. MACAULAY’S BIOGRAPHICAL, CRITICAL AND MISCELLAN- 

EOUS ESSAYS. AND POETICAL WORKS. 

31. CROMWELL’S LETTERS AND SPEECHES. By Thomas Carlyle. 

32. ALTON LOCKE. Bv Charlks KiNTiSLKV. 

33. BACON’S FAMOUS' WORKS. /\ /? 

34. LAVENGRO. By GkoU(;k Borrow.- ^ II f) ^ 


WARD, LOCK & BOWDEN, Ltd. 

15 East 12th Street, New York. 











^ \* ^ ^ 

''f : 

?.•' ’*>■ ■'. 

s' <0 <* A o 

C'® V % A ■ • * 

% -< ^ c 


'^- A - 



* '■^i. 

* \^ i s'- ' lO 

c»“'^« •^O ' O'^ s*" 

ci * _r^>v <' ^ C. ' 


.V tp. 



X'-'.-TT.- , 

^*t v0‘ ^ 'C‘ 

^ - a'^ ^ 6?. 3^ ■" 

« <1 ' <*- rA /Vi ^ <V 

•vX b . <B t/' i< V 








0 

^ 0 * .V ' \ • 

<^> A c 0 "* ** 

' -n^ = 

= vO o. t 



'K * ‘ ' ' " ~ ’ • “ 'V ‘ • ' • : ' 

w.* % l w/ / \ 

C°" ' ” 'A* ' “ " ^ V' ^ ~ ‘ " “ ' ' 0 ^^ • ^ • A ' 

. -Po. v^ = ■; ; ArPv . -P 

* .,S *. 




' 

rsv 


0 






^ aO^ a 'cv \> s 



S * * / 3 K 0 


,l.'^ 


.V </>^ 



V ~ -\v^A\ll A ^ ^ y 

» ^ o' 





<r ^ 0 « V 





« A^’ ^ ' 

* A % ", 

a ,A^ ^ ^ m 

■P- K = ' 'Kf, 


* ^y//l>^ .<«■• ■^_ -, -■ "■"« 

V ^ *i. ^ 

^ "■ \V’ .. T:^#ll^ ^ ^ 


^0°^ 



*t/> %v’ 

ty> ,^v 



xV A 


r." A% "yiWy A . 

■' <• ^ 0 . n ■* .A ',, 

A' % % 



V 


\0°x. 



'o ^ 7^' * 

«. '^c. ■" v'\ 

^ .V 

rP^ A 1 -t 


s-S 



V 

o o' 





^ ^ A ® ^ 

- - ^.JEjJ^ '' 

'K/ * ■^- 

o N C . v* ^ * * ■' '* 

O- 



t> <» X 






‘"o o'" 


o'^ 


• a»i5;^ ' v"' ='."^ 

^ n A 0 , ® * ' y \ ^ S ’ ^ 7^ 

^ - -■> •''f' 


vV 



,’ . ■' 0 * \ ' \ "o " 'V / 


^ ^ Y-/ 



(V ft 


: 

:!^’ c 



.Oo 


,0‘ 



o o' 


M 0 • 

0~ „ V * O 





?'^A^ 


v-i' 




•«> -ft 


>1 



^ ft ft 



^ aU 

.0^ v^' * ' ^ -Z"^- 



/V 




f. 


y 


0 ^ K 



ft ft 













ft 


^0 ^ 

.0 N 0 ’ ^ *'^9,1'^' v;?’'^ 

\ 0 ^ ^ C* V 

fA^$r /In ’^V \\* 

rC^XW/^ c O 


j 5 


. ^ 


ft 




V » 8 ^ ’<5i 


0 4 t K 


^ iX 

.<\' . 0 »< c ^ ''^'U 



c‘b^> 




tc- ^ 





o or 


9 I ^ 


V- ^ ^ 

iVr '■'^^ ■^’^' " ^ 

‘C.' ^ 'T C/^y 

<?• 




.' \v -K-.^ \ 

v/s^A-“y\x.», 

.V »y«i., ., ■-j, . ■'^'^ 






0 if. K 







